How to pronounce LONDON places correctly: Vauxhall, Marylebone, Leicester, Chiswick...

Do you know how to pronounce “Chiswick”, “Tottenham”, “Leicester”, and “Vauxhall”? London has some quite unusual place names. Most London place names are not pronounced how they are written, so you need to learn each name individually. That’s why in this lesson, I will teach you 17 London place names and their pronunciation to help you sound like a native English speaker. This lesson is for you if you plan on travelling to London or simply to expand your general knowledge when reading literature or watching English programs. Even many Americans don’t know how to say these names correctly, so watch this video and get them right! TRANSCRIPT Hello, and welcome back to engVid. This is a video for people learning English, perhaps you’re planning a trip, coming over to the UK, in particular to London, because we’re going to be looking at pronunciation of some quite difficult places in London, but also this is a video for people who are already quite experienced with speaking English. There are places that I’m going to show the pronunciation of that even my wife gets wrong, and she’s lived in London for over five years. There are lots of people in London who slightly mispronounce some of these places. We’re going to start with Leicester Square - the epicentre of London; it’s the heartbeat, it’s where the film premiers happen. Looking at this word, “Leicester Square“ - no. It’s pronounced: “Lester Square.“ Maybe it would help if we just forget about these letters, here. “Lester“. I’ve got a friend called Lester; he plays the trumpet. Let’s think of “Lester Square“. I’ve written this in black because it’s on the northern line, probably the most grimy, dirtiest of the lines, but it goes from north to south. So, if we take a couple of stops north from the northern line, we will get to “Tottenham Court Road“. We can shorten that to “Tottenam Court Road“, “Tottenam Court Road“. Tottenham Court Road. There’s a place up in the north of London called Tottenham; it’s where the football team, Tottenham Hotspur play their games. My team, though, is Chelsea, which is more in this area of the woods; this neck of the woods. Where do you think Chelsea play? They actually are based in not “Fulham“, but “Fulham“, “Fulham“. So, you may have watched my other video on pronunciation of places of place names across the UK; we looked at this rule here: “ham“ you just shorten to “um“: “Fulum“. This is in green because it’s on the district line. If we go a little bit further out on the district line, it separates into three parts. You need to make sure you’re on the right train, otherwise you’ll end up in Wimbledon, and you want to be going to Richmond. If you’re on the Richmond branch of the line, you may come across this place: “Chiswick Park“. We shorten it to “Chisik“. Again, this is a rule I’ve touched on in my other places in the UK video. Okay, so we got Tottenham, we’ve got Leicester, Fulham, Chiswick, a very big transport hub is “Vauxhall“. We pronounced it: “Vauxhall“, “Vauxhall“. If you’re out for some pretty serious partying, there’s some quite interesting clubs in Vauxhall. Right, going up into the affluent northwest of the city: “Marylebone“, but it’s actually pronounced “Marlebone“. Okay? So, forget about the “y“; pretend it doesn’t exist: “Marlebone“, “Marlyebone“. Now, going up into the green spaces of Hampshire, there’s this lovely spot to get a panoramic view out over the city in “Hampstead Health“. “Hampstead“. So, here, just forget about this “a“; don’t say: “Hampstead“; it’s “Hampsted“. Again, a very nice part of London. Now, just out of the sort of very center, we have “Edgware“, “Edgware“, it’s “Edgeware“, “Edgeware Road“. Quite a cosmopolitan part of London; lots of massage, interesting Arabic, Lebanese types of shop. A little bit farther out, we have: “Warwick Avenue“, no, it’s “Warick“, so just forget about that “w“; “Warick Avenue“. Let’s head east. “Holborn“, okay? So it’s in red because it’s on the Central Line; Central Line goes across London. And if we alight here, if we get off the tube here, we would be getting off at “Holborn“, “Holborn“. So I would tend to forget about that “l“, there: “Hoborn“. Just a walk away from there, edge of the west end: “Aldwych“. Now, what we want to do here is forget about that “w“: “Aldych“, “Aldych“. You’ve got the lovely Somerset House with its open-air ice-skating at winter, and as I said, the edge of the west end, so quite a good place to visit. Now, this is north of the River Thames; if I go over a bridge, I may come to “Southwark“, “Southwark“. So what I’m doing here is again I’m missing out that “w“: “Southark“. There’s a cathedral there and it’s quite close to the Imperial War Museum. […]