How do you pronounce "Llanelli"?

[Hatman 🍁]

ok, Im gonna need a link to a sound file to hear this one.

[minionofmidas]

Thla NEH thlee, roughly.

[ilikeverin]

Ll is a voiceless lateral alveolar fricative, I believe.  An "l" without your voice box vibrating, in other words.  Right?  "hl" is the closest approximation, probably.

[migrendel]

Fluh-NEF-lee?

And BLY-now GYOO-ent?

[HardRCafé]

La Nuddy?

[Serenity Now]

I know the answer o/c

I know it, but I still find it hard to say, even though I'm half Welsh.. If I want to know how a Welsh place name is pronounced I say it wrong in front of my mum..

I can say Blaneau Gwent and Ceredigion..

I know Welsh constituency names and I can usually work out the pronunciation.


It's a skoosh compared to some of the Gaelic derived names in Scotland :/

Balluchillish is 'ballahoolish'
Culross is 'Coo-ross'
Moray is 'Murray' (Not 'Maw-ray' Mr Dimbleby!)

Try these

Findochty
Garioch
Islay
Kilconquhar
Milngavie

Actually, the Welsh ones now suddenly seem pretty easy


I now know how to pronounce Llanelli now BTW..

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Why do Welsh/Scottish have such impossible names to pronounce?

[ilikeverin]

Why do Welsh/Scottish have such impossible names to pronounce?

Their orthography is tangentially related off the orthography of English, which is, in itself, one of the most horrible currently existing.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Why do Welsh/Scottish have such impossible names to pronounce?

Their orthography is tangentially related off the orthography of English, which is, in itself, one of the most horrible currently existing.

Explain why please

[afleitch]

Here are the answers btw

Findochty - 'Fin-echty'
Garioch - 'Gee-ry'
Islay 'Eelah'
Kilconquhar ' Kinnuchar'
Milngavie 'Mill-guy'

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why do Welsh/Scottish have such impossible names to pronounce?

Welsh names are actually very easy to pronounce if you know the sounds of the letters (Welsh has more letters than English) and where to put the stress; just about everything is phonetic.

[Ban my account ffs!]

It's because English is a "mutt" language.  Several hundred years ago, things were a bit easier.  Things like knife and knave and knight actually had the "k" and the "gh" pronounced in them, so that knight (nite) was pronounced K-nicht (German ch).

The "gh" construction in many words is one of the most confusing in English.. "thorough", "through", "plough", "slough", "draught", "naught"

Most of these words are related to similar German words... naught being related to the German "nichts" meaning nothing, plough (American plow) being related to the German Pflug and through being related to durch.

The French and their desire to include silent letters has made English very very confusing, as silent letters are not consistent.  English also has an unusually high number of words that sound exactly the same but have different meanings.  A sentence like "The poor man poured water on the pores of his skin" might be a bit confusing to foreigners if you said it to them.