In Australia, there are many places with strange sounding names and, in some cases, these names are not said as they are spelled, which causes a great deal of confusion for visitors. sometimes, mispronouncing place names puts you into an embarrassing situation. The reactions you get will be unpredictable. The person you ask does not know what you are saying or make misunderstanding. what is even worse is that you pronounce the place name as a taboo word ! So, I would like to introduce some pronunciations of place names in hope of giving a hand to the travellers in Austrailia. Surely, there may be different pronunciations for one word in different places owing to the dialect.
Spell Pronunciation
Basket Range, South Australia Basket Range (Bas - as in Cash not Barsket)
Albany, Western Australia Al-bany NOT All-bany.
Cairns,Queensland Cans
Goonoo Goonoo, New South Wales Gunna Ga-NOO
Canowindra, New South Wales Ca-NOWN-dra
Forster, New South Wales Foster
Fremantle, Western Australia Fre-MANTel, NOT FREE-mantel
Greenwith, South Australia Grenith
Lachlan, Tasmania Lack-lan / Lock-lan
(the river in New South Wales is the latter.)
Launceston, Tasmania Lon-ces-ton
Moggil Moggil, New South Wales MOE-gill ma-GILL
Moggil, Queensland, Australia Mog-il (short o).
New Norfolk, Tasmania New Nor-foke or Norfick
Thebarton, South Australia Thebarton (NOT The Barton)
Wagga Wagga,New South Wales Wogga (second Wagga is normally omitted
or as the first one)
Walcha, New South Wales Wol-ka
If you have found any useful information in pronunciation of place names in your travel, welcome to add your information，thanks
by Jian Wang (Jo)
