Comments (Pronunciation Only)

This name is awesome, and VERY common in my school. At one point there were seven in my form class!Lloyd in Wales doesn't follow the right rules. It isn't normally pronounced with the "LL" sound, but if you wanna go ahead and learn some lingo I'm not gonna stop you. The root of the name, however, DOES start with "LL".So, here's a quick masterclass:
Right, when you go about saying "ll", make sure you're in the mindset of a fairly evil, furious snake, cat, goose or duck. Stick you tongue to the roof of your mouth, and breathe, hard. WARNING: Violent spitting may ensue, and friends may disown you. Never mind, though, you speak a tiny wee bit of the oldest living language in Europe.[And for a bit of randomly-related info:"Ll","Ch","Th","Ff","Ng","Ph","Rh" and "Dd" are all regarded as single letters in Welsh. Just to confuse you :')]
The double-L, "Ll," in Lloyd would be pronounced "kl" with a soft-k, perhaps like the German "ch" in "Bach". Related names, I thought, included Cloyd, maybe Clyde.
The double l is not pronounced like cl, but just as a voiceless l. The l after a c would usually be voiceless. All you have to do is leave off the c and you've got the sound. (Not hard, is it?)
Oops! Actually, that's not QUITE right, though it's plenty close enough. (Start with the voiceless l, but shift the weight of the tongue firmly to the point of contact and force the air out instead of just letting it out. Better yet, get yourself a native speaker and imitate him/her. (See the article "voiceless alveolar lateral fricative" on Wikipedia.)
You can hear the sound (and read further instructions) at http://www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/say.php.

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