American Reacts to Why are British place names so hard to pronounce? 

The Danes are from Denmark and the Norwegians are from Norway. The Vikings collectively came from the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

I stay for the ads because Jay Foreman's ads are quite entertaining

Simon Roper is a good channel for linguistics, etymology and history. Especially about Anglo-Saxon history and words.

I watched the add at the end and I 100% agree with your advertising decision.

One of the best things about Jay Foreman's channel is that he actually puts some effort into making the ads as entertaining as the content.

My favourite of their videos so far are their "Unfinished London" series. There's just something about the character of those videos that especially appeals to me.

"The Danes from Norway"... Me, a Swede: 🤣

See connor? We take the piss out of everyone in a well meaning way! x

Dont worry Connor im English and we struggle with some places too, and we live here 😉

I can't imagine Frome being the most mispronounced name in Britain.. We've a town in Scotland spelt Milngavie, that's actually pronounced Mil-guy, there's no way anyone would get that not being local or finding out previously.

yeah, I was watching the ad at the end !

My favourite part about llanfair is that for however long it might be, due to the double l beginning, it only takes one syllable for most people having a pop at it to pronounce it wrong.

They don't even need videos for their ads. If they put them out separately I'd still just watch them for their sense of humour.

I loved your reaction, but your reaction to their American accent was the cherry on top 🤣

With regard to Welsh place names, you will need to learn that although both English and Welsh use Latin letters, their alphabets are very different - for instance in Welsh the letter "f" equals the English "v" and good luck with "ll". Also, in Welsh "y" is always a vowel and "w" can be used as a vowel (similar to "oo" in English - as in "too" not "took"). As for Gaelic names, they're even more complicated for an English speaker.

Enjoyed this video mate and others too. You cracked me up a couple of times here, and always good to learn! Jay Foreman and map men are great too

Yes I was watching! Finally an American reacting to Jay Foreman videos. They are amazing.

Yep! I, too, was watching the ad at the end. I like your reactions and I, for one, don't mind the pausing because you are explaining your thoughts. Also, sometimes it helps to go back on things and listen again as there's a lot to take in on some videos! :)

I was with you til the end! I've met Jay a couple of times, genuinely nice guy. He did a whole series on Unfinished London which I think you'd like, it's on his channel way back I think. Enjoy your reactions mate!

Yes right to the end

I always watch until the end whenever possible. Thank you for your time good Sir 👊

I'm always watching videos completely through. And I would expect reactors to do so too (although I wouldn't necessarily dislike or stop watching them).

Glad you found this funny channel, this video is one of their best, but most of the stuff is good and funny. Early videos are just Jay talking about London.

"I'll try not to pause the video"... Proceeds to pause it every ten seconds...

I'm from Hereford, which doesn't make much sense until you remember that the Welsh for "old road" is henffordd. Henffordd ---> Hereford.

If you want to know what British Netflix has you'll have to get surf shark, won't you. I'll take my commission in pancakes thanks.

You are too cute. Love how you started stanning for them barely twenty seconds into the video. Jay Foreman is one of the best RU-vidrs out there - I never miss an episode of Map Men! The attention to detail, or rather random details, they include is insane! And they make the only sponsor ads that I actually like watching! 😂

"the Danes from Norway" 😂

Netflix limits much of its content in relation to the world region it's being viewed for licensing reasons.

We live near Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, which is pronounced ‘Wisbeach’. Many visitors assume that it is pronounced ‘Wisbeck’.

I watched to the end and you are great and hope you are keeping well love xxxx

3:27 Leominster = 'Lemster' Bicester = 'Bister' Godmanchester = 'Gumster' Loughborough = 'Luffburra' Keighley = 'Keethlee' 14:12 Bedworth = 'Bedaff' Towcester = 'Toaster' Ely = 'Eely' Norwich = 'Norridge' Hunstanton = 'Hunston' Ynysybwl = 'Innissible'

Map men is brilliant

I always watch to the end of your videos, pausing and rewinding don't matter to me. How are you supposed to learn if you don't absorb what you're seeing and hearing, if it takes you 10 attempts to get it then hey it's all good. You're obviously genuinely interested and want to know as much as possible so you carry on doing whatever you need to do to understand and ignore the negative comments. A reaction channel is exactly what it says, if the people watching just expect to see a whole video all the way through without the reactor saying anything then they are probably in the wrong place. Keep going my friend.

As soon as you said you would be good I immediately imagined Fast Show 'ooh Suits You Sir' haha

What surprises me about this video is that they didn't mention Happisburgh in England. Pronounced "Hayz-boro".

UK Netflix is different because it won't play any film or show unless you have a cup of tea and comment on the weather first...

It's funny, but I work in IT and I'm up in Staffordshire, yet I cover parts of London, including Southwark and it amuses me even now that I get people ringing me up for support, who live in Southwark, who mispronounce their own borough as "South-Walk".

McJibbin reacting to a jay foreman video? Yo i'll buy the whole fu*kin' pack homie. Gimme that sh-- Yo that's a sick map for the corner of the vid, nice one. I found a map made in 1821 the other day online, quite high resolution. It shows whatever the map maker defined as 'barbaric', 'savage', 'half civilised', 'civilised', and 'enlightened' along with their type of government at the time. Want me to send on discord?

The one that never comes up in these sorts of videos is a small village near where I live in Northamptonshire. It's spelt Cogenhoe but pronounced Cooknow. During the war, one method used to identify possible German spies was to get them to pronounce a number of English place names. If they got more than a certain number wrong, they were held for further questioning Get 16 out of 20 right, pass friend, all's well.

Very good, Like the see your reaction to Irish names

4:47 - here you go. This is the start point. I saved your time.

Map men have the best Ads, also the best content, so its a win, win, win.

I like Mapmen’s home made adverts 🤣

I was born in a small city called Chichester it still has it's Roman walls and is over 900 years old it still has bits of Roman flooring under the cathedral.

I love your videos, I do not get upset I think you have a great sense of humor.

Philology is the study of the history of languages

I stayed for the ad. The difference between netflixes is just the geofencing of content that the media companies attempt to enforce.

👀 here to the end, nice work! From Manchester, England👍🏻

'American reacts'. There wasn't so much a reaction to the actual video but the look on your face when Jay was doing his 'American accent' during the advert at the end was an absolute classic! What in tarnation? He wasn't being dang tootin' serious dag nabbit!

Yes I watched the ad at the end - and Towcester is pronounced like the bread toaster 😁

Have been to New England a few times and you definitely have the closest to an English accent in the States

Here's a couple of Scottish place names that catch folk out. Strathaven, pronounced Strayven. Milngavie, pronounced mulguy.

South Shields, where I'm from was the Roman fort of Arbeia. The main supply port for Hadrian's Wall. Arbeia means, fort of the arabs. As the garrison there was mostly from Mesopotamia. Thru knocked down the old Victorian school I went to (Baring Street, so called because it runs directly north/south. Maritime legacy) to excavate the foundations. It's now not only amongst the best preserved Roman sites in the UK, but they've rebuilt sections of it, including the gatehouse, on the original foundations. It's a walk around, walk through museum. The artefacts in the museum are mostly excavated from the site. And they employ actors (committed enthusiasts) to dress as and take on the personas of Roman soldiers during the summer months. They patrol the walls, stand guard and you are encouraged to talk to them, as they remain in character as they tell you all the gen and history of the place.

I live in Bury, pronounced berry. My aunt lives in Euxton, pronounced Exton. Just over the hill in Yorkshire, pronounced Yorksher, there is Slaithwaite, pronounced slough-it as in plough it Then there is Belvoir, pronounced Beaver. The only rule is there are no rules

Excellent Link. Keep on keeping on.

My personal favorite place in England to mess with pronunciation is, Loughbrough. As to Netflix, they rotate films & documentaries between various regions so they can seem to keep bringing new things. As an example, you could watch the series, Full Metal Alchemist, Brotherhood in the US at the moment. But it was taken down off UK Netflix a couple of months ago.

Love watching ads that creators put effort into making them entertaining, like Map Men and Ryan George

We even argue over a rivers pronunciation. Where I live Peterborough the river Nene is pronounced Neen. 30 miles up the road in Northamptonshire it’s pronounced Nenn. It’s a local rivalry that’s been going on for centuries

Represntin' Chester! Not just 'ending' in Chester. Pure and only 'Chester'!

I'm told locals pronounce Sherborne in Dorset as Shebbun. It's an easy way of knowing instantly whether someone is from outside the area.

Not sure if you're still reading comments from a video this old, but yes, I saw the ad and to answer your question it has to do with each country having "exclusive" trade mark/copyrights that differ per country. I ran into this when I went to Britain and had to use my vpn to be able to watch my normal US stuff.

Watched to the end. Love those two too!! You need to not pause so much darlin. That's why people may drop off.

At 12:22, the word you're looking for is "etymology". it is the study of the origins of words and how they change over time. It is a branch of Linguistics.

okay, so i'm a geordie (a resident of newcastle) and i will proudly say that it is newCAHstle rather than newCARstle

My father's from Brighton, Sussex (South Saxons, among the first groups of Saxons to arrive, subsequent groups moved north) and is Saxon (you had the Holder of the plough and the Leader of the oxen). My mother is from South Shields (originally shiels, not shields, referring to the fisherman's cottages on the south shore) Tyneside, as have her family for over a thousand years. Her name was Harle, directly Norwegian meaning Earl. So my dad's people, for all his aires and graces, was of Saxon peasant stock. My mother, who's family were humble coal miners, were Viking nobles.

Hey bro, greetings from Swansea, Wales, UK! Wales is the smallest of the four countries that make up the UK (Scotland, Ireland & England being the others). As a country we have a population which might be smaller than some US cities, population of Wales being app 3 million! If you are from Wales you are Welsh. Swansea is my home city but you will find a Swansea in the county of Bristol in Massachusetts named after my home city by some of the first settlers in the US in the 1600’s. About 10 miles outside of Swansea, Wales a small industrial town in the 18/1900’s manufactured the steel roof for the West Wing of the White House when it underwent expansion in the late 1800’s! Actors Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta Jones (Michael Douglas’ wife) are Welsh born, in fact Catherine grew up about two miles from where I live in an area on the outskirts of Swansea called Mumbles. Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones are Welsh. And many of the founding fathers and some of the early US presidents had strong Welsh links, Hillary Clinton’s grandmother was Welsh. You will also find there is a Swansea in Illinois, South Carolina, California, and Arizona too! Much love to you and yours from Swansea, South Wales. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧🇺🇸

In the South West of England, there are hundreds of Celtic place names, especially Coombe (cwm) and Compton, and many more local place names with Pen etc

Full marks for getting Frome pretty much correct at the start. To be fair it's not just foreigners who can get the names wrong. It's just that British natives have had more time to hear these place names over the years, so that gives us a head-start. There will be many lesser known villages that almost ANYONE would get wrong the first time they saw them (for example Cholmondley and Wybunbury ..... "Chum-lee" and "Win-bree" respectively). There's a town not too far from me where even it's residents have never been able to agree on the correct pronunciation!

The Danes that invaded basically most of east side of England was called The Danelaw. The capital was York, which was called Jorvik. The J being said as Y.

Wasn’t sure this covered all the hardest places names to mention though, more of a history of place names. Check out Scottish or Welsh places names

I would love to see more of Jay foreman on your channel

i am 87 years old, started this video 63 years ago, leave the pause button alone!

The Danes weren't from modern day Norway, they were from Jutland and the archipelago of islands in the Kattegat, you know, Denmark. It was those guys who conquered part of England and established the Danelaw. The ones from what is now Norway (the Norse) were busy conquering the Western Isles of Scotland and parts of Ireland - The Western Isles of Scotland maintain a strong Norwegian connection, as too does Dublin, which is Old Norse for Black Pool, and was the central trading capital of Norway's Western expansion until the Normans invaded Ireland and took the lot. The ones in what is now Sweden (the Swedes) didn't bother going West, but kept their raiding and exploring and trading to the East, establishing a trade route passing through Aldeigjuborg (Ladoga) and Holmgard (Novgorod) into Lake Ilmen before travelling through a series of navigable rivers into the Black Sea to trade with the Byzantines, eventually establishing colonies along the way such as in Kiev, setting up Russia's Viking origins and bringing the Eastern Orthodox Church Northwards where it would have a stable hold on the culture for over a thousand years and influence the Cyrillic alphabet - the Byzantines went as far as to hire the Swedes as mercenaries to guard the trade route and defend Constantinople from the mid 9th Century until the mid 15th Century.

Don't worry about stopping and rewinding or giving your own opinions - we don't mind 👍

Vikings: Those that raided/settled in mainland England (Mostly the North, Midlands and East Anglia) were chiefly Danes from Denmark although some Norse from what's now Norway also joined these raids and Danish armies. Scotland, the Islands of Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides, plus the Isle of Mann and Viking towns in Ireland like Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Wexford, Waterford and Wicklow were raided/settled by the Norse (Norweigan vikings). This is supported by DNA profiles of people living in these areas today. Norse DNA is different to Danish DNA. However just to complicate matters Danish and Saxon DNA are the same, so it's difficult to tell if people in Northern England had Saxon or Danish ancestors or a mix of both. Hope that's helpful!

ye i was watching the ad at the end

"The Danes from Norway". That was funny! LOL!

i watched right to the end. i dont know the exact reason but theres quite a lot of shows that dont match with US/UK netflix....but it sometimes applies to other streaming sites too like Amazon

Love you reaction to him doing an American accent!

Just caught up with this....gotta say you mentioned Towcester which is actually "Toe-stir". Other fun ones are Wildboarclough (Wilber-cluf) , Woolfardisworthy (Wool-sir-ee) , and Hawick (Hoi-ck) . I was going to mention Scunthorpe (no silent S on that one ) , and Prestatyn (Press that in) , but decided against it....

Well done for trying llan fair pg least you had a go! But there is a video on RU-vid that breaks it down and shows you how pronounce it. just type a search' how to say llan fair pg

My Grandad was born in LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYNDROBWYLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOCH and as a Welsh speaker here some facts about the spelling In Welsh 'LL' & 'CH' represent a single letter and W & Y are vowels in the Welsh Alphabet, So the name consists of 48 letters as with 21 vowels In English the name has 55 letters and 11 vowels.

Watched to the end. Their adds are the best

Advert at the end made me laugh sooo much!

I think a funny thing is how towns with same name are pronounced definitely in usa. As an Englishman now in USA, it gets me how in new londonthe river is Thames but in England it sounds as teams etc. To roll your rrr,s try ..around the rugged rock,the ragged rascal ran…

Also something they didn't mention is that Celtic and Scots (modern day Welsh etc) have different sounding letters. Example LL together in Welsh makes TH sound

I could be laughably wrong but I was under the impression that the difference between US and UK Netflix is, at least, in part due to the licensing costs of the programs. There are apparently quite a lot of British made programs that are available on US but not UK Netflix and that's down to the fact that the programs' copyright holders charge broadcasters different amounts for domestic or international broadcast. As a result it costs Netflix more to provide the same program on their UK platform than it does on their US service. Whether this is actually true or not, and if the reverse is also true and some American shows are only UK Netflix because it's cheaper to show them there than on US Netflix, someone with a better understanding of Netflix's business model will have to say.

I am from Alnwick, the pronounciation is further muddled by all other towns on the river Aln include the letter l in how they're spoken

You have to realise Jay Foreman does a classic line of piss take videos!!😄😄

Rolling rrrrrr's are easy. Press the tip of your tounge to your palate, just behind your front teeth and keep it there whilst exhaling. Add your vocal cords to the mix and you've got the perfect rolling r.

Watched the adds. Surprised they didn't mention Loughborough in the video, Dave Gorman did a bit about it and other place names on Modern Life is Goodish which was very entertaining. The faux outrage is fine, all Bart of the British banter.

Yes Connor watched till the end😊

You sir have just got a sub for being a good lad!

I like how you highlighted in the thumbnail and intro that placename in my home country 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

one of those cjhaps was part of wit tank a realy funny comedy groop well worth a look perticulaly nellsons last words!

😂😂 You face when they dropped into an American accent.. I thought you was going to punch your screen 😂 So US netflix isn’t a huge different, films get released quicker in the US than UK. You also have more older series like Twin Peaks etc.. we obviously have more UK box sets and series. I find your channel really entertaining. Keep up the good work, great content and really endearing. Big thumbs up here..

I grew up near a village in Kent spelt Trottiscliffe but pronounced Trozz-lee.

Finally my home town Towcester gets a mention!

Rolling the R: it's somehow like when you say a D, that's at least where your tongue needs to be, and then "fire" it like shots. (Somehow, more or less.)