Adam
Alex
Benjamin
Emma
Gill
Jade
James
Rebecca
Ronnie
How to pronounce British towns & cities: -HAM, -BURY, -WICH, -MOUTH…
A surprising thing about British town names is they are often pronounced differently than they are written. For example, the name “Tottenham” is actually pronounced phonetically like “tot-nam”, which is only two syllables compared to the three syllables in its written form. Depending on where you are in Britain, you may even hear different variations in pronunciation. So how can you know how to pronounce town names properly? In this lesson, I will teach you about common suffixes of British town and city names and how to pronounce them correctly every time. I will teach you the etymology of suffixes such as-ham, -bury, -field, -wich, -mouth, -pool, and -ing. We will also talk about what these suffixes mean. For example, did you know that any town name that ends in -pool means “harbour”? Learning these suffixes will improve your pronunciation and knowledge of British town names.
Related Lessons
Quiz
Test your understanding of this English lesson
Test your understanding of the English lesson by answering these questions. You will get the answers and your score at the end of the quiz.
Comments
3 Comments on “How to pronounce British towns & cities: -HAM, -BURY, -WICH, -MOUTH…”
Leave a Comment
Reply
Leave a Comment
Levels
Lesson Topics
Thank you my dear master for this interesting lesson. You are great and i honor of having such an english professor like you. ❤️
Great lesson, Jade, although I acknowledge it was really hard to me… Fortunately, most of the famous English cities have easier names, like London, for example. Haha! Anyway, it’s always a good idea to know the right way to pronouce in case one day I ought to go there.
This lesson proves that English is not a phonetic language at all. Do you know the reason why the English spelling is so different from speaking?
I am from Brazil and my mother tongue is Portuguese, which is not 100% phonetic, of course, but our pronunciation is more “predictable”, I think.
Thank you in advance!
Thanks! There are so many lessons and maybe there is already one, but have you thought about surnames?