Conference vaxcat::gb92

My wife and I are leaving Canada for a 3 week holiday in England and Wales 
and will be staying at B&B's throughout.  Can someone please help us to 
understand how to phonetically pronounce the names of the following places in 
Wales that we plan to stay or visit...

	Abergavenny
	Llandrindod Wells
	Llangollen
	Betws-y-Coed

Many thanks!

-doug

    
    
    I'll try.....
    
    
    Abergavenny           just as it says      Aber-gav-any
    
    Llandrindod Wells     Are the Ll's         Clan-drin-dod  Wells
    
    Llangollen			""	       Clan-gollen
    
    Betws-y-coed          bit more difficult   Betsy-co-ed
    
    
    If your in the region go to Llanfair PG, that's the short name, 
    maybe someone knows the long version, and it is long !
    
    Mark.

    ,129 in here.
    
    Andrew

LL is more of a back of the throat hissing C than the clear c

Betws-y-coed; When I was last there it sounded more like Betus -E- Coed
with the U sounding almost like a oo.

Just my observations.


Simon

	Actually I thought it was more like Clan-Goth-Len but am
	certainly no authority.

	Does anybody know Llangollen?. I have a 19th century
	watercolour painting of "The Old Mill House, Llangollen"
	and am interested to know whether the scene depicted still
	exists. One day I might be able to visit and find out but
	its a long way from Hampshire.

	I believe that it's very scenic and there are interesting 
	industrial archaeology relics as far as Canals and Railways
	are concerned.

	-John

>Betws-y-coed; When I was last there it sounded more like Betus -E- Coed
>with the U sounding almost like a oo.

	Betsy coed......

R.

Well according to www1.databack.com/~shore/betws.htm it is pronounced
Betoos-er-coyd. That is certainly what it sounded like when I asked a
local inhabitant.

Simon

	So Besty-coed it is then.

R.

    Where's Huw Williams when you need him ?
    
    Royston

    Huw who?
    
    Jamie.

    >Huw who?

    I think he's referring to me, born and bred 10 miles west of
    Llangollen, and a native Welsh speaker.

    I think .244 dropped a llanger with his Clan-gollen!

    "LL" is formed by placing your tongue behind your front teeth (same
    postiton as for starting a "D") and blowing around the sides of the
    tongue. 

    LLangollen has 3 syllables. Llan-go-llen. "Llan" rhymes with Flan,
    "go" rhymes with Cor (blimey), "llen" rhymes with Hen (aka chicken).

    Abergavenny is the anglicised name for the town, the Welsh being 
    "Y Fenni", but most locals stress the last syllable, i.e. the ~venny in
    Aber-ga-venny
    
    Llandrindod Wells, is just Llan-drin-dod, with Wells added by the
    English in its Victorian Spa town phase.

    Betws-y-Coed, the best english pronunciation equivalent I can figure is
    Bettoose-er-coed
    
    And just to rise up to the challenge:
    
    Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch,
    
    and yes, it is spelt correclty. It is an hours drive up the A5 from
    Betws-y-Coed, although there's not much there appart from a few houses,
    a railway station, and a large gift shop where tourists inject huge
    sums of money into the local economy!
    
    Huw.
        
            

Thanks Huw.

    >Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
    
    OK Huw, how about translating it to English, I used to have a car
    sticker with it on as we went there about 10 years ago.
    
    Its something obscure like "The little cave by a tree in a valley..."
    
    Royston

    "The Church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce
    whirlpool and the Church of Tysilio by the red cave"
    
    We visited it last summer and I took a photo of the platform sign which
    has both the Welsh and the English translation on it.
    
     - Richard.

    Re .-1
    
    Yup, That sounds about right. 
    
    'Course it's only the Railway Station that has that name, the village
    itself is called Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. The Great Western Railway
    comissioned a local historian to invent the long name to attract the
    Victorian tourists.
    
    Huw.