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Rail passengers have been left baffled and angry by the "mangled pronunciations" of Welsh place names at stations in North Wales.

Welsh language activists are also annoyed the tannoy announcements are made in English only.

Llanfairfechan comes out as "Clanvervekan" and Bodorgan as "Budorgan" while Rhyl is barely pronounced at all.

On the Cambrian Coast line Llwyngwril near Barmouth is described as "Clwngyril" and Machynlleth as "Makynceth".

At the famous Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysililogogogoch station, the village with the longest place name in Europe tourists, visitors were seen struggling to decipher the tannoy pronunciation of announcements.

Anna Wyn Davies, who was waiting for a friend to arrive at Llanfairpwll from Chester, said: "The pronunciation is awful, it gives completely the wrong idea. And if non-Welsh people think the proper way to pronounce Llandudno is 'Clandudno' that's the way they'll say it."

Irfon Jones, travelling from Porthmadog to Shrewsbury described the pronunciation as "disgraceful".

"I travel regularly and I wince when I hear these announcements. It's been like this for months. I'm sure no where in England would put up with such mangled pronunciation so why should we," he said.

(Image: Daily Post Wales)

Earlier this week passengers on the Conwy Valley line were spared the mis-pronunciations as the tannoy system was turned off.

The mis-pronunciation is in complete contrast to announcements at stations in south and west Wales where bilingual announcements are made.

David Williams of Cymdeithas yr Iaith said: “The lack of proper Welsh language announcements is completely unacceptable. We raised our deep concerns about these very basic failures with Transport for Wales in a meeting in January.

"They promised speedy changes, but we've yet to see them.

"Their lack of Welsh-language provision is almost unprecedented for a public service.

"We're aware of a large number of complaints about services that are not available in Welsh or that treat the Welsh language less favourably than English. We have asked the Welsh Language Commissioner to intervene.

“It is a great disappointment that the Welsh Government, Transport for Wales and the company that is under contract to them have failed to ensure that these services are in place, despite having sufficient time to do so before the new contract started last year.

"They should have made plans to ensure these services were provided properly.”

A spokesman for the Welsh Language Commissioner said: "We are carrying out an investigation into services provided by Transport Wales, including public address systems. As such we are unable to comment further at this time."

Transport for Wales, or Trafnidiaeth Cymru in Welsh, have vowed to improve their public announcements.

A spokesman said: " We’re working hard behind the scenes to improve our public announcements. We’ll soon be introducing a new Welsh language system to those stations where there is at present no Welsh language announcements.

"English pronunciations of Welsh place names at these stations will also be changed.

"Customers will begin to see and hear these improvements by the end of this year with the project due to be completed by Spring 2020.”

A Welsh Government agency Transport for Wales took over responsibility for railway services in Wales from Arriva Trains Wales last October