In Scotland, there are many small towns and villages with names that might be tricky for newcomers to pronounce.

Ayrshire is no different, with plenty of weird and wonderful place names that get even local tongues in a twist.

We asked our readers what places in Ayrshire are always pronounced wrong, and here's what they came up with...

Irvine

This is a commonly mispronounced place name, especially by visitors from across the pond and those from other parts of the UK.

The North Ayrshire town, of course, is pronounced 'Ir-vin', rather than sounding like the American city of 'Irr-vine' (to rhyme with 'wine') in California. 

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Catrine

The Ayrshire village with the greatest number of pronunciations, where locals always tell us to say 'Caw-turn'.

There have been many mispronunciations over the years, including 'cat-reen' and 'cat-rin', which we should keep exclusively to girls' names instead.

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Drongan 

The former East Ayrshire mining village has been called all sorts, including the visitor favourite of 'Dron-gun'.

However, locals simply pronounce their village as 'Drung-in' and we should all follow their lead! 

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Beith

Not one of the more obvious ones, but locals insist there is a correct pronunciation of the town on the northern edge of North Ayrshire.

As one of our readers explained: "Beith. The 'th' is soft, as in 'the', not hard as in 'thing'".

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Dalry

The final heavily mispronounced place name by our readers was the village of Dalry, situated high up in North Ayrshire.

The place is commonly referred to as 'Dal-ree', when in fact it is simply said 'Dal-rye'. 

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