How to pronounce LONDON places correctly: Vauxhall, Marylebone, Leicester, Chiswick...
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
We can shorten that to "Tottenam Court Road", "Tottenam 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
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".
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
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
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",
Quite a cosmopolitan part of London; lots of massage, interesting Arabic, Lebanese types
A little bit farther out, we have: "Warwick Avenue", no, it's "Warick", so just forget
about that "w"; "Warick Avenue".
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.
Now, if I wanted to go market shopping and pick up some fine foods, I may want to head
Do you know how it's pronounced?
"Burra".
"Borough Market" - one of the best markets in London.
Heading a little bit further southeast, now this is in a different colour because I'm
not entirely sure which tube line this is on; maybe you could look it up at home and
But "Deptford" is not on the tube line.
"Deptford" . "Deptford", so forget about that "p": "Detford".
Then further east, probably a more likely tourist destination, "Greenwich", so we want
to shorten the vowel sound there so it becomes "Grenich" and I'm forgetting about the "w".
"Grenich".
Fabulous, views, again if you climb the hill and you've also got the Cutty Sark there.
And there is a marine museum, which is also worth a visit.
If I stayed on that central line and headed out into the woods, I would come to this stop
on the central line: "Wan", again, I'm shortening that vowel sound and it becomes "Wamsted".
Probably a place on everybody's wish list to visit London: "Dalston".
You need to get the vowel sound right here; it's actually "Dulston", "Dulston".
Hope you picked up a few tips in today's video; there's some wonderful places to visit in
London; we just need to make sure we get the pronunciation right so people understand where