UK’s most mispronounced places names revealed by Preply

The UK boasts some of the most beautiful scenery, towns and villages in the world but they aren’t always the easiest for tourists to pronounce.

From Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire to Omagh in Northern Ireland, each corner of the UK has at least one unique town tongue twister.

UK’s most mispronounced towns and villages 

There’s almost nothing more embarrassing than mispronouncing the tricky place name to a Taxi driver, a colleague – or worse, a local.

So that you’re always prepared, the language experts at Preply have conducted a study to reveal the most mispronounced UK place names.

Plus, the team has gone one step further by explaining exactly how to pronounce each so that you can avoid any tricky pronunciation predicaments. 

The study follows another analysis from Preply on the longest words in the English dictionary – how many do you know? Do you know what they mean?

Here are the UK’s most mispronounced place names:

Cholmondeley (Cheshire)

Many people try to pronounce this civil parish in Cheshire as Chol-mon-de-lee. However, this is incorrect.

Chum-lee is the right way to say this village with a total population of a little over a hundred.

Bicester (Oxfordshire)

Bicester is a town and civil parish in the Cherwell district of northeastern Oxfordshire in Southern England, but the pronunciation of the place has been a struggle for some time.

Many pronounce it as By-cester, but this is incorrect!

The correct way to say this town is Bi-stuh – who’d have guessed?

Frome (Somerset)

Frome, a town in eastern Somerset is thought to have derived from the ancient Brythonic word “ffraw”, meaning fair, fine or brisk, and described the flow of the river that runs through the town!

So, no, it’s not pronounced from, but in fact pronounced froom!

Godmanchester (​​Cambridgeshire)

One of the main things that confused people is how similar Godmanchester looks to the city Manchester.

As a result, many people mispronounced it as god-manchester but the correct way to say it is god-muhn-cheh-stuh.

Omagh (Northern Ireland)

Omagh is the county town of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland and we can completely understand where people may not know where to begin with this one.

Well…Preply has the answer for you – it’s Oh-ma. 

These are the most mispronounced places in the UK. ( Google Maps) (Image: Google Maps)

Ynysybwl (Wales)

Ynysybwl is a village in Cwm Clydach in Wales, and again it’s pretty difficult to spell so can be difficult to pronounce.

An-is-abull is the correct way to pronounce the village, so if you ever visit please use that pronunciation.

Quernmore (Lancashire)

Quernmore is a village in the City of Lancaster in Lancashire and is home to some unusual pronunciations.

This tongue-twising village is actually pronounced as Kwor-mer!

Woolfardisworthy (Devon)

Woolfardisworthy is a village and civil parish in the Torridge district in the English county of Devon.

Many people mispronounce the place as Wool-far-dis-worthy but Preply has saved you the bother as it’s actually pronounced Woolzery!

Ballachulish (Scotland)

Located near Glenoce, the Sottish village Ballachulish is correctly pronounced as Ball-a-hoolish!

Beauchief (South Yorkshire)

Beauchief which is in Sheffield is one of the UK’s, and Yorkshire’s, most mispronounced place names. 

The correct pronunciation is Bee-chiff!