Bala lake Railway.

It is perfectly normal for placenames from one language to be rendered differently in another. I refer to Rome, not Roma; Cologne, not Köln, etc. Different English speakers also have different accents -despite living here 20+ years, my father still pronounces Grantham as Granth-arm. That reflects his accent and upbringing, rather than being a deliberate insult.

On the principle of “when in Rome…”, I do try to pronounce names correctly when aware, but know that I don’t always get it right. Some tolerance goes a long way

 

Don't you mean "when in Roma..."? ;-)

 

As I believe the phrase goes back to St Augustine, I'll not translate into Latin, but leave the whole thing in English

 

I did not think the pronunciation was that bad generally. I would not have any issue with how Llangollen, Dolgellau and Llanuwchllyn ere pronounced as I appreciate that some can find some Welsh names hard to pronounce but so as long as they appear to be at least trying I am fine with. The pronunciation of Bala and Ruabon stood out to be more to me due to the inflection on the a and because I would think they are pretty straight forward words. Maybe they just stood out to me as it is an area I know well. How accurate a company wants to be is up to them but where they are seeking to raise money and presumably create a good impression it is something I would have thought you would want to take care over.

What annoyed me was not the video but NathanP comments. They came across to me as saying the English will decide how we want to pronounce these funny sounding Welsh names and you little Welsh chaps should jolly well just put up with. I appreciate that might not be the impression that he wanted to give but Welsh pronunciations are NOT really just for Welsh citizens speaking to each other. They are how those names are pronounced. Use the English or Welsh versions of the name. I don't care which but don't just dismiss as if it does not matter.

 

Green Signals is a podcast - it's not trying to raise any money.
Personally (as a non Welsh speaker), I thought the names sounded about right and not something that screamed as a mistake, or that had been deliberately treated with disrespect.

 

Not sure there was much difference with the pronunciation of Bala, as there is between 'BARTH' & 'BAATH', both deemed acceptable for Bath depending what part of the world you come from. I suspect the narrator would use the former if that is her dialect - which is fine with me.
As stated above there was a good attempt at many of the other names. I am not sure we can expect people from the other side of the country to get every last syllable correct in just 24 hours in a language that is completely unfamiliar to them. Providing they make an effort that is good enough and shows an element of respect for the language.
I watched a DVD recently about the West Highland line recently where the narrator made zero attempt to pronounce the Gaelic place names correctly, you did wonder if he had ever visited the area. That isn't acceptable.
What annoys me is that this debate is overshadowing what was an excellent film overall.