How to Pronounce 20 British Cities

If you want to visit Britain then you need to know how to pronounce the places that you

are going to go. So today we're going to look at how to pronounce twenty British cities.

Are you ready to go on a tour around Britain? Ok, here we go! Before we do, I just want

to remind you that I'm teaching you the pronunciation in my accent which is a London accent. There

are many other different accents that might say these cities differently. I can only teach

you with my accent. Alright? So just bear that in mind. Now as we go through these cities

I'd like you to practise with me, ok? So when I'm saying London. Don't just sit there going

ummm. Because you won't know how to say it. You'll think you are hearing it but when it

comes to actually saying it you won't know how. So practise with me. If you find a quiet

place to do that or if you want to do it on the tube or the bus or the train, wherever

you are. Just say it with me 'London'. Even stop the video and say it and then start the

video again. So 'London, London' stop it, say it a few times. You could even say it

in different ways. You could say it very quickly 'London, London, London'. You could say it

loudly 'London'. You could say it quietly 'London, London'. Have fun with your pronunciation

otherwise it's going to be really boring, ok? Have fun! Alright, here we go.

The capital city of England, London, London. The stress is on the first syllable, London.

Not London, London.

The beautiful capital of Scotland, Edinburgh. Stress is on first syllable, Edinburgh. One

more time, Edinburgh.

Two famous university cities, Oxford, Oxford. Cambridge, Cambridge. Again the stress in

on the first syllable of both cities. Oxford. Cambridge.

One of the most famous seaside towns in Britain, Brighton. I'll say it one more time, Brighton.

Now personally with my pronunciation sometimes I will not say the /t/ sound, I will miss

out the /t/. So it sounds like Brighton. This is a glottalization. So sometimes I'll say

Brighton, sometimes I'll say Brighton. I guess I'll do that in more informal situations,

conversational situations where I am quite relaxed and I'm speaking more informally I'll

probably say Brighton without the /t/ sound. But if I am trying to be a little bit more

formal, maybe I am in class or something like that I'll say Brighton. That's just a personal

thing, that doesn't apply to everyone. But it's just good to be aware of different pronunciations

of a similar word. So Brighton or Brighton, you might hear both.

A huge city up in the north of England, famous for football and music, Manchester. Again

the stress is on the first syllable, Manchester. The second biggest city in England, Birmingham.

Now I know that the ham there looks like it should be Birmingham but actually when we

have the ham at the end of a place it's just 'um. So Birmingham. So three syllables there,

Birmingham. The stress is on the first syllable. Birmingham. Another big famous northern city

famous for music like the Beatles, the football team Liverpool. The pronunciation is Liverpool.

The stress is on the first syllable, Liverpool. A big city in the north east of England, Newcastle.

My stress is on the first syllable. Now this is pronounced very differently locally in

Newcastle where they stress the 'castle' so it's Newcastle. But I'm a southerner, I'm

from London so I stress the first syllable, Newcastle. You can do whatever you want.

A really popular city for English language students to visit is Bournemouth. Not Bournemouth.

Like the mouth. It's Bournemouth. Stress on the first syllable again Bournemouth.

A really popular place to visit for the Roman baths is Bath. You have the /th/ sound at

the end there. Bath. Now I think locally they might say Bath with a softer a, again my pronunciation

is Bath.

Very close to Bath in the west of England is Bristol. Stress on the first syllable,

Bristol.

Back up in Scotland, we have Glasgow. Stress on again the first syllable. I'm seeing a

pattern here. Glasgow. Again that pronunciation is different from how they would locally say

it. My a there Glasgow is a very southern a instead of Gla. I think further north they'd

say Glasgow but I'm saying Glasgow because that's the pronunciation that I have. Glasgow.

One of my favourite cities and where I went to university, Leeds. Nice long /i/ sound

there, Leeds. So you really open up the mouth, Leeds.

The capital of Wales, Cardiff. It's like Car diff. Cardiff. Stress on the first syllable.

Cardiff.

A really popular city for tourists to visit in the north of England is York. Say it one

more time, York. Where Robin Hood was originally from, Nottingham. Again here we have the ham

at the end just like we did with Birmingham. So it's not Nottingham, it's Nottingham. So

let's say that one more time 'Nottingham' stress on the first syllable. Nottingham.

The capital of Northern Ireland, Belfast. Stress again on the first syllable. I think

that's different from how the locals would say it where they would put the stress on

the second syllable but my pronunciation it goes on the first. So Belfast.

Alright I'm including this one because it causes so many problems and also their football

team won the Premier League a few years ago and there's a place in London with a similar

name. Leicester. Not Leicester. Leicester. Stress on the first syllable. Leicester. And

the last one, Sheffield. Stress on the first syllable again. Sheffield.

Why did I choose these cities. Well, they are the biggest cities in Britain so that's

the first reason. Secondly these are the ones that I've found tourists and English students

visiting the most. So a lot of these cities have big student populations and universities.

Or they are popular with English language students who want to learn English or they

are just famous for being big tourist cities as well. So those are the kind of main reasons

why I chose these twenty cities. There are of course lots of other cities in Britain

that I could have chosen but these are the ones I think that you are most likely to visit

or you are most likely to need to pronounce.