I'm Duncan, an' I built this

Why I bothered

My wife's fae the Philippines. Her English is better than half my mates', but the first time she met them properly she just smiled an' nodded for twa hours, because no' wan word made sense. "Yer bum's oot the windae." "He's a pure bawbag." "Taps aff!" Nae dictionary on earth was gonnae help her.

Sae I went lookin' for wan. Every "Scottish translator" online was either deid wrong, pure embarrassing, or hadnae been updated since 2009. Naebody had actually sat doon an' done it properly, wi' real voices, real meanings, an' real understandin' of when a word's an insult an' when it's affection.

Sae I did it masel'.

How it got oot of hand

It started as a simple dictionary. Then folk wanted audio. Then translation. Then quizzes. Then insults. Then myths and legends. Then Famous Scots. Turns oot when ye build something people actually want, they keep asking for mair. Who knew.

Whit makes me qualified tae dae this

I'm no' a linguist. I'm a Scot who's spoken this way his whole life, an' I've got 75,000 folk on YouTube an' 16,000 on TikTok who watch me dae it. I recorded the 4,800 audio files masel'. I wrote every definition masel'. When ye hear "dreich" pronounced on this site, that's a real Scottish voice, no' a robot havin' a go.

That's the difference. Onybody can scrape a word list. Ye cannae scrape an accent.

Whit I'm tryin' tae dae

Make Scottish slang make sense tae onybody, onywhere. A tourist headin' tae Glasgow. An expat missin' hame. Somebody's partner tryin' tae follow the patter at a family dinner. Or just folk who want tae ken whit "bawbag" means an' why it's no' always an insult.

The patter deserves better than dodgy Google results an' a phrasebook fae 2009.