When travelling, a great faux-pas to avoid if you want to get in good with the locals is mispronouncing the name of the place you’re in. Luckily, this collection of images from Thrillophilia will take some of the most commonly mispronounced place names and show us how we SHOULD have been saying them.

Most of the difficulties, of course, arise from the adaptation of a name from one language to another. Most of us will probably never be able to pronounce “Beijing” (or even “Paris”) exactly the way that a native speaker might, but it’s always nice to try. Locals will appreciate it and may go out of their way to help you more if they see that you’ve made an effort.

(h/t: thrillophilia, demilked)

Bangkok, Thailand

Melbourne, Australia

Reykjavik, Iceland

Dubai, UAE

Beijing, China

Budapest, Hungary

Phuket, Thailand

Brisbane, Australia

Colombia

Yosemite Park, USA

Iraq

Montreal, Canada

Qatar

The River Thames, UK

Versailles, France

Worcester, UK

Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem

Helena, USA

Kissimmee, USA

Lafayette, USA

La Jolla, USA

Niger

Pakistan

Worcestershire, UK