American Reacts to Why Are British Place Names So Hard to Pronounce? | Jay Foreman

Hello! I'm an American on a quest to learn more about history, geography and the universe in general. In this video I learn more about why Britain has such crazy spellings and pronunciations for their places...and I try to get better at my own pronunciations after the disaster in my English counties video. If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe!

00:00 - Intro
01:21 - Comment Time
07:32 - Reaction
16:56 - Outro

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#britain #britishenglish #uk #englishlanguage

[SoGal_YT]

Thanks for watching! Like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video 👍🏻 Follow me on social media:

[butterflyeffect]

So... an American couple visit Wales and just have to visit the town with the longest name in the UK. After standing in front of the name sign and arguing about how to pronounce this place, they decide it is time to grab some lunch. As they sit looking through the menu, the waitress comes over to ask if they are ready to order. Hearing that she has a Welsh accent, one of them asks if she is local.”Oh yes” she says, “I was born about five miles away”. “Well, in that case, will you please tell us, very clearly and very slowly, where we are?”. The waitress leans forward and says, very deliberately “Burrr-gerrrr Kiiiinnng” 🤨

[deeznoots]

Worth pointing out that latin is a relatively clean and standardised language because there are no longer native speakers to drive changes to the language.

[jncpedley]

As an Englishman who has lived in Wales, I have to say that Welsh place names are only difficult to pronounce if you approach them as English. Welsh is a different language. In fact, Welsh is quite phonetic. Learn the pronunciation of Welsh letters and the way you say the names is largely pretty straightforward.

[rnp]

The rule for the English language is all the rules have exceptions, it's just a matter of how many exceptions.

[michaelrobinson]

There is one fun place in Britain called Torpenhow Hill up north. Tor, Pen and How are all words for "hill" in various dialects, meaning it translates to Hill hill hill hill. So, it's definitely a hill.

[plkrtn]

More Jay Foreman. His stuff is brilliant.

Also, please don't apologise for getting things wrong, you're trying to learn that's the main thing!

[benpennick]

best pronounciation story I ever heard was in Devon there is a village called Crapstone. In the local pub some very posh Londoner asked a local if they really said Crapstone, the local replied, ...."No zurr round 'ere we calls it Shitabrick!"

[neilwilson]

I like the level of detail here. Seeing a person genuinely trying to learn new stuff is great!

[andywilliams]

The village of on the island of Anglesey in North Wales. Translated from Welsh into English means. 'St Mary’s Church In The Hollow Of The White Hazel Near To The Rapid Whirlpool And The Church Of St Tysilio Of The Red Cave'.

The name was created in 1869 as a publicity stunt to give the village's newly created railway station the accolade of being the railway station with the longest name in Britain. Day to day everybody shortens it to 'Llanfairpwl' pronounced 'Clan - vair - pul'. Meaning 'St Mary's Church by the pool'.

[anthonyholroyd]

As a Scot with a little understanding of Gaelic (that is to say 'Tha beagan Gàilhig agam')

Some of our place names our fascinatingly difficult. It's worth noting that whilst Gaelic has had a major influence on our place names, so has Pictish, Norse, Scots and English.


For me, the most frustrating was that just within the southwest of the city of Aberdeen are two places called 'Cults' and 'Peterculter'

But pronounced 'Cults' (as in the plural of a cult) and 'Peter-cooter'.

Other places in Scotland that sound nothing like they're spelled include:

Avoch (Och)
Cuthill (Kettle)
Footdee (Fittie)
Turriff (Turra)
Forres (Foh-rez)
Kirkcaldy (Kir-cod-ee)
Hawick (Hoy-ck)
Ballachulich (Ba-la-hoo-lish)
Dumfries (Dum-frees)
Kirkcudbright (Kerr-coo-bree)

And possibly most famously and ridiculously

Milngavie (Mill-guy)

[lukas]

Please please please react to horrible histories. You’ll have a great laugh and be learning at the same time

[johnnybeer]

It's great to see an intelligent channel, and a lovely lady who is scholarly and genuinely wants to learn . Hope you and hubby get the chance to visit us one day, I'm sure you will both love it .🇬🇧

[blacktronlego]

I'm surprised they didn't mention Loughborough which has 'ough' pronounced two completely different ways in the same word (it's luffburrah).

[AymanTravelTransport]

The town of Towcester needs to have a picture of a toaster on its signs so people can have an easier time pronouncing it xD

[mothmagic]

Sarah I absolutely admire your desire to learn more about us weird Brits. You present some videos that are amazing and even educate us about ourselves.

[vaudevillian]

Thanks very much for the shout out :) Worcestershire is spot on. The 2 CGP Grey videos on the City of London are superb

[GSD-hdyh]

Nobody seems to have mentioned Cholmondeley - pronounced Chumley, I suspect to deliberately confuse.

[castlesandcuriosities]

"Woo-stuh-shur" So many of us Brits get this one wrong too.
And I'd absolutely say to check out more of our History, it's a long one of being constantly invaded and conquered. There's a reason we eventually got rather good at war, we'd simply experienced a lot of it. (Means we have really awesome castles as well as mythology built upon so many of those invading cultures)

[colinbignall]

That crazy 58 letter Welsh town name translates as: Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio of the red cave.