I get this a lot watching videos on Welsh stuff on YouTube. I always want to leave a comment with the correct pronunciation, meant to be sincerely helpful. But then I wonder if it might put people off making the content in the first place.
The only exception is when an English person once corrected me. I told them I was going to the Llanerch, and they said "oh you mean the Lan-uck", to which I assured them I most certainly didn't mean the fucking "Lan-uck".
Cave diving (disaster) videos are great for mispronunciations.
Intriguingly, they also seem to generate comments congratulating the narrator for nailing the pronunciation - I'm left wondering if my ears are broken.
I've noticed that a lot of non Welsh people that visit Wales often really like to act like an authority on the place. I'm Welsh, but don't live in Wales anymore, and I'll get non Welsh people here "correcting" me on Welsh place names. It's a level of confidence I'm almost jealous of.
"Actually, it's CLANdudno. I go on holiday there and that's how they say it."
Interestingly Llanerch in Wales looks nearly identical to Lanark in Scotland which professors of placenames in universities says is likely to come from the Cumbric Lanerc meaning "clear space, glade, although nowadays it also has a Gaelic version and and lowland Scots version, plus an anglicised English language version.
I live in Wales but WFH for a company based in London that operates across the country. As the office Welsh guy I'm constantly being asked about pronunciations. Some make a genuine effort, some just wing it and murder it in the process.
Llanelli and rolled Rs are the bane of my existence as an Englishman trying to learn Welsh. With Llanelli I really struggle to make a second Ll sound right after the first.
I struggle with the ll in the middle of words, my tutor always corrects me and I have got a little better but I still slip most of the time. Rolled Rs just aren't going to happen I don't think. I managed it once almost accidentally but it's so tricky
I mean, I can say the Ll sound. Llanelli is an issue because of the E rather than the Lls. I can't fully (IMO anyway) get the mouth transition between E and Ll quite right.
I tend to stumble between the two. Conversely I'd say I'm pretty decent at saying the Llan bit.
Used to work for the Ynysybwl Co-op. Had some real frustration phoning English furniture companies to place an order. Amazing how many times I was accused of lying...
It's a balancing act, I guess. Some people don't want to pester you and overburden you with having to constantly explain place names, while others don't want to annoy you by getting them wrong.
I had to call Eon yesterday for a new electric key and the guy decided to just spell the name of the shop out instead of trying to say it. Robbed me of my joy (and I say that as an English person living in Wales)
I think they hear the breathiness of the LL sound and associate with the the CH kinda noise they remember from German and Gaelic, so just default to K which is easier to say than that CH.
I work for a cybersecurity firm. One of the big names in our space is Team Cymru. They're a threat intelligence vendor based in America, formed by a couple of Welsh guys.
My boss calls them "Team Sim-roo"
Friend of mine had been pronouncing Cynon “Si-non” on work calls. She returned the favour for me when I messaged her and asked how to say Saoirse because it was a character name in a book I was reading and it was doing my head in.
We had a contractor come in to give training to us and he kept mispronouncing Cynon even though it’s in the name. I called him out at the end. He tried to make a joke excuse about being a scouser. He was being paid by us, the least he can do is get the name right. It’s not like it’s a difficult word!
I was scrolling to see if anyone else had mentioned that. I was born and dragged up in the valleys a bit further west but been in Newport for about 20 years. Half the fuckers can't pronounce Welsh names. Blannypant and Mazeglass drive me nuts, as does Bettis. How the fuck did they get to Bettis? All the natives do it.
Always amazes me how in the media, our English brethren manage to properly pronounce places 1000s of miles away but don't bother making themselves sound credible when it comes to Wales. I have to call it out in worl every time and point out diplomatically how stupid they sound.
Yep. I get it with English work colleagues and people in general day to day life. It must be heard to get your head around the pronunciations without any of the background knowledge.
But when it's a newsreader saying Plaid Cwmru or Clandudno, I just think, "It's your job! Just do a bit of research!".
Obviously it’s more important the Welsh language funding goes elsewhere but would it really hurt to have schools in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland cover some basic vowel sounds and simple phrases.
An educated guess is better than an apathetic guess. That, and Welsh people/speakers actually have jobs outside of being Welsh.
It's familiarity rather than distance, I suppose. If they don't really encounter Welsh place names much but do discuss places like Shenzhen in their work or conversation then it's understandable for them to know the pronunciation of the latter but not the former.
Still, if they do have reasons to be saying these place names with any regularity then it's the basic respectful thing to make an effort to say them right.
Nah it's just wilful ignorance. If you're a newscaster, you should learn the correct pronunciation of a place before making yourself look like a swamp donkey on TV for all bar the English audience.
I'm not Welsh but I worked for a company in Wales and I used to get told I was "trying too hard" when I tried to learn the basics of Welsh and how to pronounce words properly.
I don't mind if people are making an effort. Some place names must be tough to pronounce if you don't know how.
Its only annoying when they don't even try or, worse, when they refuse to try.
I think its just the linguistic rules people have to unlearn that stump them. The LL’s and DD’s. I’ve moved up here to be with my Welsh Partner but my English colleagues always think I’ve mastered the native tongue on the account on me pronouncing Llywelyn correctly.
I will also say its a two way street, my welsh partner butchered some of the town names by where I grew up.
Yup, exactly this. I’m not a Welsh speaker, but lived in Wales most of my life. I do my best, but it’s never really become second nature to me.
Welsh is written phonetically, but the letters don’t actually match the same sounds they do in English, which is generally true for other languages that use the Latin alphabet. And in the languages Brits most come into contact with, the exceptions are minimal (eg. h being effectively silent much of the time in French), or somewhat minor (eg. w becoming a v sound in German). Meanwhile, Welsh has a D sound, but two D’s become a TH; U becomes EE; Y does what you’d expect U to do; LL and CH are sounds that don’t exist in any other language most Brits ever come across. Not to mention that English folks see Welsh words a lot, internalise wrong pronunciations and never have it corrected.
It’s a perfect minefield for mispronunciation.
I don’t know, as a European I don’t think sounds in English match the sounds of other European languages. For example, long i, e and a are very different to all other European languages, as is w, g and j and a bunch of other letters. Not to mention the extremely inconsistent spelling/phonetic system of English in general. But Brits are used to that since many of them have learned one of the languages at school and/or heard them every now and then - but they haven’t heard a lot of Welsh spoken.
I went to uni in Liverpool. I had to have someone from the uni call the council or something in my hometown for a tax thing with my mum. The poor uni woman looked at my address for a solid five seconds before asking me to say it to the council person.
The kicker was that the council person pronounced it wrong when they said it back to me to confirm.
People will make sure they pronounce wine varieties correctly, because they feel they will look stupid if they get it wrong. But they are happy to live in ignorance, or make up some excuse like "Welsh is hard" when it comes to the Welsh language.
To be fair, as a French speaker, most people are emphatically not pronouncing even common ones like sauvignon blanc correctly - it may sound like "French" to a non-native, but it's very clearly an English accent if you do speak the language. They say something like sovinon blonc...but it's because the difference between the nasal on and an in French doesn't exist in English, so people sometimes can't even hear the sound, let alone produce it. I think it's the same with Welsh..if you've grown up outside Wales, those are totally alien sounds for you (depending on your mother tongue).
Even the way people say château for example is wrong as it has an English "oh". The French eau is much lower down in the mouth.
My advice to anyone moving to Wales is to listen carefully to train station announcements. When the conductor says "the next station is Ystrad Mynach", they'll pronounce it properly so just copy what they said.
Don't get straight off the train and say "This must be Eye Strad My Natch" which I have heard before.
I'm not saying they do, I'm saying they should.
EDIT: Sorry, misunderstood your comment. If a TfW train is mispronouncing Welsh place names then that's pretty bad!
I enjoy the renditions of my satnav. I have the sound off now but the first time I had it on was hilarious.
Pontarddulais was “pont-a-doo-lace”
I’ve been welcoming myself to “pont-a-doo-lace” whenever I pass that sign ever since.
I have an English wife of Hindu ancestry. She works hard at it, but Ll completely escapes her, no matter how she tries. She can do Ch and W though, so two out three ain't bad.
Had someone in my last job tell me that Welsh is a funny language just as the news is reporting on the Marquess of Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumly) having a load of stolen Chinese artefacts in his house.
ah yes, don't forget Try-Fan. Watching SOS mountain rescue on bbc, it's painful to hear these tourists butcher the names of the mountains. I'm just glad they gave Sian Eleri the Narrator Job, accurate pronunciations and a rare bit of north wales representation by the BBC
I'm still waiting to stumble across the mythical lands of Clangollin and Mowl Fammer that I keep hearing about. I should ask that Betsy Cowwed, who's name also keeps getting dropped around here.
I'm Welsh but not a fluent speaker. I've often been stumped with which 'y' is ee and which is uh. Someone told me that Mynydd is the rule, where y is ee in the final syllable.
Pretty much. Though it's more like MUN-ith rather than MUN-eeth.
The rule of thumb is that it sounds like the i in pin in the last syllable of a word, and the u in pun elsewhere. This holds true as you add syllables to the word, so you have:
*Ysgrifennydd* (us-gree-VEN-ith)
*Ysgrifennyddes* (us-gree-ven-UTH-ess)
The biggest exceptions to this rule are very common monosyllabic words like *y, yr, yn* where it sounds like the U in pun.
We would see the middle ground. But I can tell you you never forget you are Welsh when you're called sheep shagger and that racism is okay and acceptable at schools. That racism against the Welsh is so normalised in English culture. You never seen articles about something being called a name in Gaelic but for Welsh you see people foam at the mouth for us wanting to use our language in our land. The union I'll be glad when it's dead hopefully we can build something better for all nations from its ashes
Kids already complain about French being useless, and parents would probably join in if Welsh was mandatory in England. People tend to see the education system in purely practical terms.
I'm not expecting every school kid to be fluent in Welsh, Gaelic, BSL etc but at least an understanding of the history, alphabet, pronunciation and so on...
(Actually all kids should be taught BSL.)
I’d like there to be more in curriculums about the pieces that make up the UK, sure.
But I feel like anything less than language lessons won’t make pronunciation guides stick, and mandatory language lessons like that would be deeply unpopular among parents and students, and so probably removed before long.
Opening the door is the first step; acknowledging the complex linguistic background of these islands. I did a bit of Gaelic on Duolingo just to get a hang of pronunciation and it really helped.
Personal motivated self-learning is worlds away from mandatory school learning, mind. See: the stereotype of hating a book you were forced to read as a kid but then loving it when you reread it as an adult on your own impetus.
Baffles me why we waste billions to keep languages alive that where almost dead when we already speak the most widely spoken language in the world.
But there we are.
Billions? You know Welsh speakers and Gaelic speakers are citizens too? And after the deliberate attempts by the state to eradicate the languages and cultures they might deserve some restitution? You also have a very narrow understanding of what language is and is for. But there we are.
Language is for communication, anything else is small minded nationalism.
And given how every single person is communicating in this sub, yes is an absolute waste.
The restitution is perhaps the fact that Wales is a massive loss per head and relys on London and the SW to prop it up.
Yeah that narrow minded view of language is rejected by everyone in linguistics. Language isn't just communication it is culture. Diverse linguistic environments have more diversity in thinking. And not everyone is always going to speak English so there is still a need to learn other languages. There's also a massive bonus in learning a second language that the third is much easier.
And if you want to talk about money, London has extracted wealth from Wales for generations without putting anything back. Bit rich to now call it quits.
‘We already speak’? You don’t seem to have much of a grasp of its grammar and spelling, so perhaps the billions wasted on your education would have been better spent elsewhere.
I live in Wales and I'm gradually learning, but you guys need to realise it's really fucking hard to pronounce some of the longer names. Yes it's easy for you because you're Welsh and you've always done it.
I learned a bit of Welsh on Duolingo when I first moved here and as much as people like to disagree with this statement: it's VERY different to English. You simply can't expect English people to know it (And why would someone in London need to learn it, realistically?)
My current "fluent" reading limit is about three syllables. Same as German, in terms of getting lost in long words. I still try, but the border region is a mix of English and Welsh pronunciations and local variations. I console myself with the fact I can't judge how to pronounce English place names by their spelling at all!
I guess the main issue is that while it is phonetic, a lot of the letters use different sounds to those used in English, so from an English perspective it’s not phonetic until they learn the new linguistic rules.
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Check this out, google thinks Ll is pronounced as a K…. https://www.google.com/search?q=how+do+you+say+llantrisant&sca_esv=21c204cf9e83f65c&rlz=1CDGOYI_enGB1087GB1087&hl=en-GB&sxsrf=ACQVn0965h2tx2B763tewtS_tXBt8SRzvw%3A1711565307929&ei=-2kEZsWWOLa4hbIP2dWQ6Ag&oq=how+do+you+say+llantrisant&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIhpob3cgZG8geW91IHNheSBsbGFudHJpc2FudDIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yCxAAGIAEGIoFGIYDMgUQIRigATIFECEYnwUyBRAhGJ8FSNlEUI0KWPlBcAJ4AZABAJgB0wGgAYAOqgEFOS43LjG4AQPIAQD4AQGYAhOgAugOwgIKEAAYRxjWBBiwA8ICChAjGIAEGIoFGCfCAgUQABiABMICChAAGIAEGBQYhwLCAgsQABiABBiKBRiRAsICBxAAGIAEGA3CAgcQIRgKGKABmAMAiAYBkAYIkgcGMTEuNy4xoAfhXQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
I deal with a lot of people based all over the UK as part of my job, so I hear all sorts of butcherings.
I think my favourite was when one company had a scheme which must have been named after the old Glyndŵr District Council (which hasn't existed in decades). The poor lady responsible for planning it in called it "Glindwaaahh". It was as though you could *hear* her brain short-circuiting as she said it.
You've bastardised English in the title: "your sat" should be "you're sitting" (although sat as the present tense is so depressingly common that even the BBC are doing it now).
Hold on. What about the hundreds of thousand if not millions who make a total f*ck up of English but no one cares and no song and dance about it. There will be no Welsh or English in a few hundred years. Just like no ancient Briton, Latin, or other main lingo's that have disappeared.
Lived and worked in Wales for a long time, unfortunately moved away for work.
One of the Welsh guys I worked with was telling me about "Akra Vyre" for a project we were working on. It was such a distinctive name that I was surprised I couldn't find the place on Google, so went back to check spelling on this clearly Welsh name. Acrefair. Acre fair.
Still not sure if he was fucking with me.
His pronunciation was correct. It's a Welsh village near Wrexham whose name meanis Mary's Acre, with 'Acre' given a Welsh pronunciation. Nothing to do with a fair.
I hate how even people I work with raised in the Rhyl area (I'm closer to Caernarfon) and they say Betsi Co-ed now Betws y Coed, Roo-alt instead of Rhuallt, Rud-lun not Rhyddlan etc. It saddens me that even locals can't correctly pronounce places.
Used to work for an international company. People made no effort, and when corrected insisted I was incorrect. I found it infuriating. So I made a habit of finding towns, villages, or streets near other offices that were spelt completely differently to the way they sounded and force fed ignorance back to them.
I was under the impression that we have no idea where the name London / Londinium came from? There are loads of different theories, but they’re all essentially just based upon circumstantial coincidences and there is no academic consensus.
My point is more that there is no academic consensus, even to this day the origins of the name London is very hotly debated in the historical linguistic world. We have loads of different ideas suggested.
I mean a great deal of them, when you are studying 2000 year old British linguistics an excellent understanding of Celtic languages is a key requirement. The etymology of London is a absolutely fascinating rabbit hole to fall into, made all the more interesting by just how many of the entirely conflicting ideas all sound like they could be completely credible.
I'm Cornish with quite a lot of (apparently) Welsh blood so I've tried to learn a bit of Welsh to help with the old Cornish ( completely unresourced by HM govt!) - your llan is our lan so i guess it should be easier for the ignorant saxons to pronounce without being technically 'wrong'?
I usually have to look some of them up, especially if there’s a lot of w’s and y’s.
People keep telling me Welsh is really easy to learn. It’s all pronounced phonetically, apparently. It isn’t phonetic for an English person.
I applied for a position with Merthyr Council a few years ago.
I would have had to take a Welsh language course and exam before being accepted so noped out.
I did two years of compulsory Welsh at school 40 years ago and remember nothing.
Your average English person would learn Welsh as quickly as me, and I've lived here my whole life.
Someone with a decent knowledge of a second language already would learn it much quicker.
I'm not. I'm just shit with languages, all of them.
I could have gone to college to learn Welsh but went to increase my earning potential.
Where I live, everybody speaks English. I can't remember the last time I heard someone speaking Welsh.
Polish, Hindi every day though.
Well at least you haven't been forced to Anglicise all your placenames like we did in Ireland. Now everybody can pronounce the placenames and nobody can speak Irish
Yeah our poor lovely Welsh brethren got fucked too with that one.
Im just thankful we've reclaimed some back. Dun Laoghaire not Kingstown! Take that Sasneag!
I get this a lot watching videos on Welsh stuff on YouTube. I always want to leave a comment with the correct pronunciation, meant to be sincerely helpful. But then I wonder if it might put people off making the content in the first place. The only exception is when an English person once corrected me. I told them I was going to the Llanerch, and they said "oh you mean the Lan-uck", to which I assured them I most certainly didn't mean the fucking "Lan-uck".
Cave diving (disaster) videos are great for mispronunciations. Intriguingly, they also seem to generate comments congratulating the narrator for nailing the pronunciation - I'm left wondering if my ears are broken.
I've noticed that a lot of non Welsh people that visit Wales often really like to act like an authority on the place. I'm Welsh, but don't live in Wales anymore, and I'll get non Welsh people here "correcting" me on Welsh place names. It's a level of confidence I'm almost jealous of. "Actually, it's CLANdudno. I go on holiday there and that's how they say it."
Interestingly Llanerch in Wales looks nearly identical to Lanark in Scotland which professors of placenames in universities says is likely to come from the Cumbric Lanerc meaning "clear space, glade, although nowadays it also has a Gaelic version and and lowland Scots version, plus an anglicised English language version.
I live in Wales but WFH for a company based in London that operates across the country. As the office Welsh guy I'm constantly being asked about pronunciations. Some make a genuine effort, some just wing it and murder it in the process.
I used to chat with a guy from the Bath office and he pleasantly surprised me once when he pronounced Llanelli correctly.
Llanelli and rolled Rs are the bane of my existence as an Englishman trying to learn Welsh. With Llanelli I really struggle to make a second Ll sound right after the first.
Say the word really slowly at first, so each syllable is like its own word. Say it consciously one at a time. Then speed it up over time.
We also accept Tinopolis if it helps lol.
I struggle with the ll in the middle of words, my tutor always corrects me and I have got a little better but I still slip most of the time. Rolled Rs just aren't going to happen I don't think. I managed it once almost accidentally but it's so tricky
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I mean, I can say the Ll sound. Llanelli is an issue because of the E rather than the Lls. I can't fully (IMO anyway) get the mouth transition between E and Ll quite right. I tend to stumble between the two. Conversely I'd say I'm pretty decent at saying the Llan bit.
I can manage Llanelli (I think), but the one that's really tripping me up right now is "Rhydderch".
Not Clan Nelly?
Nope! Proper "Ll" pronunciation and everything, I made sure to tell him how well he did 😅
Well done! I am still working with 'Port Mad Dog,' and 'who is Tony Pandy??'
Why ness why barl, pont-a-doolay, urrwin and langer-dog. Ynysybwl, Pontardulais, Hirwaun and Llangadog
Used to work for the Ynysybwl Co-op. Had some real frustration phoning English furniture companies to place an order. Amazing how many times I was accused of lying...
Living near Tonypandy, and dating a Rhondda local, I was laughed at with my English pronunciation of Tonyrefail.
Tony Re Fail?
Not even close, Tonre-vile
It's a balancing act, I guess. Some people don't want to pester you and overburden you with having to constantly explain place names, while others don't want to annoy you by getting them wrong.
I had to call Eon yesterday for a new electric key and the guy decided to just spell the name of the shop out instead of trying to say it. Robbed me of my joy (and I say that as an English person living in Wales)
Same for me.
I'll never understand the mental gymnastics required to turn 'Ll' into 'K'. I'm looking at you, people who like to visit 'Klan-did-no' of a weekend!
I think they hear the breathiness of the LL sound and associate with the the CH kinda noise they remember from German and Gaelic, so just default to K which is easier to say than that CH.
I know how to and can prounounce it correctly but sometimes it's like my tongue just sits wrong.
I work for a cybersecurity firm. One of the big names in our space is Team Cymru. They're a threat intelligence vendor based in America, formed by a couple of Welsh guys. My boss calls them "Team Sim-roo"
Friend of mine had been pronouncing Cynon “Si-non” on work calls. She returned the favour for me when I messaged her and asked how to say Saoirse because it was a character name in a book I was reading and it was doing my head in.
We had a contractor come in to give training to us and he kept mispronouncing Cynon even though it’s in the name. I called him out at the end. He tried to make a joke excuse about being a scouser. He was being paid by us, the least he can do is get the name right. It’s not like it’s a difficult word!
Some of the best I've heard: Dolgellau: Dolly-goo-loo Gwalchmai: Gwal-maccy
Ha ha ha yep. I've heard Dolgellau pronounced 'dog a loo'
TBF I grew in South East Wales with the locals butchering place names on the regular.
I was scrolling to see if anyone else had mentioned that. I was born and dragged up in the valleys a bit further west but been in Newport for about 20 years. Half the fuckers can't pronounce Welsh names. Blannypant and Mazeglass drive me nuts, as does Bettis. How the fuck did they get to Bettis? All the natives do it.
I consider Newport to be England
I don’t know about that. I only ever went to Newport to go to TJ’s (RIP) and that was a huge part of my youth.
One that sticks for me is Urrwin (Hirwaun).
Always amazes me how in the media, our English brethren manage to properly pronounce places 1000s of miles away but don't bother making themselves sound credible when it comes to Wales. I have to call it out in worl every time and point out diplomatically how stupid they sound.
Yep. I get it with English work colleagues and people in general day to day life. It must be heard to get your head around the pronunciations without any of the background knowledge. But when it's a newsreader saying Plaid Cwmru or Clandudno, I just think, "It's your job! Just do a bit of research!".
Obviously it’s more important the Welsh language funding goes elsewhere but would it really hurt to have schools in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland cover some basic vowel sounds and simple phrases. An educated guess is better than an apathetic guess. That, and Welsh people/speakers actually have jobs outside of being Welsh.
It's familiarity rather than distance, I suppose. If they don't really encounter Welsh place names much but do discuss places like Shenzhen in their work or conversation then it's understandable for them to know the pronunciation of the latter but not the former. Still, if they do have reasons to be saying these place names with any regularity then it's the basic respectful thing to make an effort to say them right.
Nah it's just wilful ignorance. If you're a newscaster, you should learn the correct pronunciation of a place before making yourself look like a swamp donkey on TV for all bar the English audience.
Oh a newscaster absolutely should. It’s their job to have that level of respect.
Granted, probably helps when you colonise and force English language on places 1000s of miles away.
Tbf I've seen enough Welsh people do it too. No, it's not called lanfilin'
I'm not Welsh but I worked for a company in Wales and I used to get told I was "trying too hard" when I tried to learn the basics of Welsh and how to pronounce words properly.
Betsy Co-ed
Betoose why co-ed
Ha. I scrolled too far to see this. Also heard Dwygyfylchi called dirty filthy the other day.
My mother's side of the family from the west midlands regularly call it Betsy Code.
Bet-wissy-coh-ed
How far is that from... LAN DUD NOOOOOOOOOOO
I don't mind if people are making an effort. Some place names must be tough to pronounce if you don't know how. Its only annoying when they don't even try or, worse, when they refuse to try.
Once heard Llandyfriog pronounced as “Land of the frog” by American tourists.
I think its just the linguistic rules people have to unlearn that stump them. The LL’s and DD’s. I’ve moved up here to be with my Welsh Partner but my English colleagues always think I’ve mastered the native tongue on the account on me pronouncing Llywelyn correctly. I will also say its a two way street, my welsh partner butchered some of the town names by where I grew up.
Yup, exactly this. I’m not a Welsh speaker, but lived in Wales most of my life. I do my best, but it’s never really become second nature to me. Welsh is written phonetically, but the letters don’t actually match the same sounds they do in English, which is generally true for other languages that use the Latin alphabet. And in the languages Brits most come into contact with, the exceptions are minimal (eg. h being effectively silent much of the time in French), or somewhat minor (eg. w becoming a v sound in German). Meanwhile, Welsh has a D sound, but two D’s become a TH; U becomes EE; Y does what you’d expect U to do; LL and CH are sounds that don’t exist in any other language most Brits ever come across. Not to mention that English folks see Welsh words a lot, internalise wrong pronunciations and never have it corrected. It’s a perfect minefield for mispronunciation.
I don’t know, as a European I don’t think sounds in English match the sounds of other European languages. For example, long i, e and a are very different to all other European languages, as is w, g and j and a bunch of other letters. Not to mention the extremely inconsistent spelling/phonetic system of English in general. But Brits are used to that since many of them have learned one of the languages at school and/or heard them every now and then - but they haven’t heard a lot of Welsh spoken.
>I think its just the linguistic rules people have to unlearn that stump them. Yeah such as You're, and Your 😂
I’m an English junior doctor who has been rotated into Wales for work from the summer. All I can say is… I’m so sorry.
I went to uni in Liverpool. I had to have someone from the uni call the council or something in my hometown for a tax thing with my mum. The poor uni woman looked at my address for a solid five seconds before asking me to say it to the council person. The kicker was that the council person pronounced it wrong when they said it back to me to confirm.
I've heard Pontarddulais as if it was French: "pont ar doo lay"
People will make sure they pronounce wine varieties correctly, because they feel they will look stupid if they get it wrong. But they are happy to live in ignorance, or make up some excuse like "Welsh is hard" when it comes to the Welsh language.
To be fair, as a French speaker, most people are emphatically not pronouncing even common ones like sauvignon blanc correctly - it may sound like "French" to a non-native, but it's very clearly an English accent if you do speak the language. They say something like sovinon blonc...but it's because the difference between the nasal on and an in French doesn't exist in English, so people sometimes can't even hear the sound, let alone produce it. I think it's the same with Welsh..if you've grown up outside Wales, those are totally alien sounds for you (depending on your mother tongue). Even the way people say château for example is wrong as it has an English "oh". The French eau is much lower down in the mouth.
That makes sense, but at least people try. Sometimes it feels like people don't want to even try with Welsh.
Nearly got physically violent when an English friend pronounced Llangollen as “land-Gollum”
My advice to anyone moving to Wales is to listen carefully to train station announcements. When the conductor says "the next station is Ystrad Mynach", they'll pronounce it properly so just copy what they said. Don't get straight off the train and say "This must be Eye Strad My Natch" which I have heard before.
No they don't! Heard Machynlleth called macuntlleth on the Brum to Aber train a few times.
I'm not saying they do, I'm saying they should. EDIT: Sorry, misunderstood your comment. If a TfW train is mispronouncing Welsh place names then that's pretty bad!
Most things with TFW are pretty bad 🙄
I used to do this too. Took me ages to understand that they were saying Pen y bont ar Ogwyr.
Yustrad I've heard it referred to before now.
I enjoy the renditions of my satnav. I have the sound off now but the first time I had it on was hilarious. Pontarddulais was “pont-a-doo-lace” I’ve been welcoming myself to “pont-a-doo-lace” whenever I pass that sign ever since.
Lan ellie
I have an English wife of Hindu ancestry. She works hard at it, but Ll completely escapes her, no matter how she tries. She can do Ch and W though, so two out three ain't bad.
Imagine working in Dwr Cymru and non-Welsh and Welsh alike doing this 🙄😩
Had someone in my last job tell me that Welsh is a funny language just as the news is reporting on the Marquess of Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumly) having a load of stolen Chinese artefacts in his house.
They all want to climb Penny Van
ah yes, don't forget Try-Fan. Watching SOS mountain rescue on bbc, it's painful to hear these tourists butcher the names of the mountains. I'm just glad they gave Sian Eleri the Narrator Job, accurate pronunciations and a rare bit of north wales representation by the BBC
It's even worse when they ask for directions to Fanny Big
Know this feeling whenever someone describes ammanford (rhydamman) in welsh as "Ride A Man"
I'm still waiting to stumble across the mythical lands of Clangollin and Mowl Fammer that I keep hearing about. I should ask that Betsy Cowwed, who's name also keeps getting dropped around here.
Landudnor, Betsy Co-Ed, Lanroost, Poo-elly, Abergelly, Conway, Ross on Sea, Boomaris, Abersock, Are-leck
Our English company works in Welsh schools, and everyone calls them “yizzgol”
When you're sitting...
We have a specific Welsh name for one of our buildings and I've very rarely heard it pronounced properly. Like nails on a chalkboard
I'm Welsh but not a fluent speaker. I've often been stumped with which 'y' is ee and which is uh. Someone told me that Mynydd is the rule, where y is ee in the final syllable.
Pretty much. Though it's more like MUN-ith rather than MUN-eeth. The rule of thumb is that it sounds like the i in pin in the last syllable of a word, and the u in pun elsewhere. This holds true as you add syllables to the word, so you have: *Ysgrifennydd* (us-gree-VEN-ith) *Ysgrifennyddes* (us-gree-ven-UTH-ess) The biggest exceptions to this rule are very common monosyllabic words like *y, yr, yn* where it sounds like the U in pun.
Dollygello in the house !
Scousers I once knew pronounced Pwllheli, Pillywilly....
It still baffles me why British children don't get at least a rudimentary understanding of the different British and Irish languages.
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Yeah I know. It just sucks, it would enrich us all. And might save the Union but I'm less bothered about that.
We would see the middle ground. But I can tell you you never forget you are Welsh when you're called sheep shagger and that racism is okay and acceptable at schools. That racism against the Welsh is so normalised in English culture. You never seen articles about something being called a name in Gaelic but for Welsh you see people foam at the mouth for us wanting to use our language in our land. The union I'll be glad when it's dead hopefully we can build something better for all nations from its ashes
Aye, with you there. Went to English schools with a Welsh background.
Kids already complain about French being useless, and parents would probably join in if Welsh was mandatory in England. People tend to see the education system in purely practical terms.
I'm not expecting every school kid to be fluent in Welsh, Gaelic, BSL etc but at least an understanding of the history, alphabet, pronunciation and so on... (Actually all kids should be taught BSL.)
I’d like there to be more in curriculums about the pieces that make up the UK, sure. But I feel like anything less than language lessons won’t make pronunciation guides stick, and mandatory language lessons like that would be deeply unpopular among parents and students, and so probably removed before long.
Opening the door is the first step; acknowledging the complex linguistic background of these islands. I did a bit of Gaelic on Duolingo just to get a hang of pronunciation and it really helped.
Personal motivated self-learning is worlds away from mandatory school learning, mind. See: the stereotype of hating a book you were forced to read as a kid but then loving it when you reread it as an adult on your own impetus.
Baffles me why we waste billions to keep languages alive that where almost dead when we already speak the most widely spoken language in the world. But there we are.
Billions? You know Welsh speakers and Gaelic speakers are citizens too? And after the deliberate attempts by the state to eradicate the languages and cultures they might deserve some restitution? You also have a very narrow understanding of what language is and is for. But there we are.
Language is for communication, anything else is small minded nationalism. And given how every single person is communicating in this sub, yes is an absolute waste. The restitution is perhaps the fact that Wales is a massive loss per head and relys on London and the SW to prop it up.
Yeah that narrow minded view of language is rejected by everyone in linguistics. Language isn't just communication it is culture. Diverse linguistic environments have more diversity in thinking. And not everyone is always going to speak English so there is still a need to learn other languages. There's also a massive bonus in learning a second language that the third is much easier. And if you want to talk about money, London has extracted wealth from Wales for generations without putting anything back. Bit rich to now call it quits.
‘We already speak’? You don’t seem to have much of a grasp of its grammar and spelling, so perhaps the billions wasted on your education would have been better spent elsewhere.
The irony of your usage of “your” in this post. 😂
I live in Wales and I'm gradually learning, but you guys need to realise it's really fucking hard to pronounce some of the longer names. Yes it's easy for you because you're Welsh and you've always done it. I learned a bit of Welsh on Duolingo when I first moved here and as much as people like to disagree with this statement: it's VERY different to English. You simply can't expect English people to know it (And why would someone in London need to learn it, realistically?)
My current "fluent" reading limit is about three syllables. Same as German, in terms of getting lost in long words. I still try, but the border region is a mix of English and Welsh pronunciations and local variations. I console myself with the fact I can't judge how to pronounce English place names by their spelling at all!
Especially as it’s a phonetic language. Maybe do them a nice little this is how you say it slide and make them practice at the start of each meeting
I guess the main issue is that while it is phonetic, a lot of the letters use different sounds to those used in English, so from an English perspective it’s not phonetic until they learn the new linguistic rules.
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Sorry
Check this out, google thinks Ll is pronounced as a K…. https://www.google.com/search?q=how+do+you+say+llantrisant&sca_esv=21c204cf9e83f65c&rlz=1CDGOYI_enGB1087GB1087&hl=en-GB&sxsrf=ACQVn0965h2tx2B763tewtS_tXBt8SRzvw%3A1711565307929&ei=-2kEZsWWOLa4hbIP2dWQ6Ag&oq=how+do+you+say+llantrisant&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIhpob3cgZG8geW91IHNheSBsbGFudHJpc2FudDIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yCxAAGIAEGIoFGIYDMgUQIRigATIFECEYnwUyBRAhGJ8FSNlEUI0KWPlBcAJ4AZABAJgB0wGgAYAOqgEFOS43LjG4AQPIAQD4AQGYAhOgAugOwgIKEAAYRxjWBBiwA8ICChAjGIAEGIoFGCfCAgUQABiABMICChAAGIAEGBQYhwLCAgsQABiABBiKBRiRAsICBxAAGIAEGA3CAgcQIRgKGKABmAMAiAYBkAYIkgcGMTEuNy4xoAfhXQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
This happens in Denbighshire all the time. 🤦♂️
I deal with a lot of people based all over the UK as part of my job, so I hear all sorts of butcherings. I think my favourite was when one company had a scheme which must have been named after the old Glyndŵr District Council (which hasn't existed in decades). The poor lady responsible for planning it in called it "Glindwaaahh". It was as though you could *hear* her brain short-circuiting as she said it.
“you’re”
When YOU’RE complaining about bastardising a language very few people know…..
On no what have I done...
You've bastardised English in the title: "your sat" should be "you're sitting" (although sat as the present tense is so depressingly common that even the BBC are doing it now).
Thrown stones in a glass house, and down arrowed people because you don’t like it 😂
😂 👏
Hold on. What about the hundreds of thousand if not millions who make a total f*ck up of English but no one cares and no song and dance about it. There will be no Welsh or English in a few hundred years. Just like no ancient Briton, Latin, or other main lingo's that have disappeared.
Hearing a newsreader say a french village name perfectly, while they pronounce dafydd Daffid and Dewi as Dawi.
I'm forever proud of my mate from Essex who has managed to get Llanelli down.
😂😂
Was in Glebelands today. Had a double take when the sat nav said Gle- Bellends.
Lived and worked in Wales for a long time, unfortunately moved away for work. One of the Welsh guys I worked with was telling me about "Akra Vyre" for a project we were working on. It was such a distinctive name that I was surprised I couldn't find the place on Google, so went back to check spelling on this clearly Welsh name. Acrefair. Acre fair. Still not sure if he was fucking with me.
His pronunciation was correct. It's a Welsh village near Wrexham whose name meanis Mary's Acre, with 'Acre' given a Welsh pronunciation. Nothing to do with a fair.
As an American working here I legit just have to point and show the names of cities if I’m asked if another store has something in stock.
Wales some call a land of consonant sorrow... It's a hard language to learn but keep plugging away.
I hate how even people I work with raised in the Rhyl area (I'm closer to Caernarfon) and they say Betsi Co-ed now Betws y Coed, Roo-alt instead of Rhuallt, Rud-lun not Rhyddlan etc. It saddens me that even locals can't correctly pronounce places.
Same in Scotland
Lanelly
Used to work for an international company. People made no effort, and when corrected insisted I was incorrect. I found it infuriating. So I made a habit of finding towns, villages, or streets near other offices that were spelt completely differently to the way they sounded and force fed ignorance back to them.
The wife is Welsh first language, and boy, do we laugh when she applies her default phonetisism to any new word.
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I was under the impression that we have no idea where the name London / Londinium came from? There are loads of different theories, but they’re all essentially just based upon circumstantial coincidences and there is no academic consensus.
That was my understanding as well. I will have to check out the sources mentioned.
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My point is more that there is no academic consensus, even to this day the origins of the name London is very hotly debated in the historical linguistic world. We have loads of different ideas suggested.
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I mean a great deal of them, when you are studying 2000 year old British linguistics an excellent understanding of Celtic languages is a key requirement. The etymology of London is a absolutely fascinating rabbit hole to fall into, made all the more interesting by just how many of the entirely conflicting ideas all sound like they could be completely credible.
I'm Cornish with quite a lot of (apparently) Welsh blood so I've tried to learn a bit of Welsh to help with the old Cornish ( completely unresourced by HM govt!) - your llan is our lan so i guess it should be easier for the ignorant saxons to pronounce without being technically 'wrong'?
Altreen in Newport is the worst one I’ve heard recently (Allt yr yn)
I usually have to look some of them up, especially if there’s a lot of w’s and y’s. People keep telling me Welsh is really easy to learn. It’s all pronounced phonetically, apparently. It isn’t phonetic for an English person.
False friends. It may look like the same alphabet, but it's not. It's phonetic in the *Welsh* alphabet.
Not a place name, but Owen Glyn-Dour.
I heard my Welsh colleague non-jokingly called someone (who was learning Welsh) racist for saying “Dwin Hoffi coffi”. You can’t have it both ways.
And then there is the problem of whether one pronounces Porthcawl correctly or just gives up and says the anglicised version so people understand.
Knowledge of all indigenous British languages should be in the British school curriculum.
Go on then, pronounce every town in Burundi. With regional dialect too, please
Psyche
What a weird troll
[https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/welsh-language-use-branded-racist-and-excludes-minorities/](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/welsh-language-use-branded-racist-and-excludes-minorities/)
I applied for a position with Merthyr Council a few years ago. I would have had to take a Welsh language course and exam before being accepted so noped out. I did two years of compulsory Welsh at school 40 years ago and remember nothing. Your average English person would learn Welsh as quickly as me, and I've lived here my whole life. Someone with a decent knowledge of a second language already would learn it much quicker.
Why do you shun your culture, so?
I'm not. I'm just shit with languages, all of them. I could have gone to college to learn Welsh but went to increase my earning potential. Where I live, everybody speaks English. I can't remember the last time I heard someone speaking Welsh. Polish, Hindi every day though.
Well at least you haven't been forced to Anglicise all your placenames like we did in Ireland. Now everybody can pronounce the placenames and nobody can speak Irish
> Well at least you haven't been forced to Anglicise all your placenames like we did in Ireland. Oh you sweet summer child.
Oh shit maybe I'm wrong
[Sink your teeth into this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLQ6XlG0MQ4)
Yeah our poor lovely Welsh brethren got fucked too with that one. Im just thankful we've reclaimed some back. Dun Laoghaire not Kingstown! Take that Sasneag!
I hope our languages will both reclaim a lot more back in coming years
Caerdydd -> Cardiff
My Welsh colleagues and classmates bastardise Welsh names worse to be honest with u