I’ve heard “Lows Angle Ease,” I’ve heard “Loss Anjlis,” I’ve heard maybe a half-dozen popular pronunications. Can we list them in some sort of order and rationale? Which is the most general pronunciation? Which is the one preferred within the city itself, or within California? Which is the one used by purist Native-Spanish speakers? Which one is used by U.S. based speakers of Spanish as a second language? Which is the official pronunication? Which is a convention that is no longer much followed? Which one do you use? Which one do you use when you’re trying extra-hard to be correct?
In Spanish I say, amazingly, Los Ángeles. But I don’t expect most foreigners to be able to pronounce that g, as it’s a Spanish j (sounds like the ch in Scottish “loch”).
My last bunch of American coworkers said LoZANyels. I think that may be what you spelled Loss Anjlis.
The would be the [former mayor] Sam Yorty pronunciation.
I’ve always pronounced it “Loss ANN-j^-l^ss” (pretend this: ^ is a schwa).
I always pronounced it “Loss AN-jilez”, emphasises on the first syllable of Angeles, which I think is about the same as what HeyHomie just wrote. While I realized that’s different from how it’s supposed to be pronounced in Spanish, and although I’ve only visited LA as a tourist, I thought that was how it was universally pronounced amongst English speakers - I’d never heard of “Lows Angle Ease” before for instance. What are the other pronunciations?
Same here. From my experience, that seems to be the most common pronunciation. As for variants, the one I run into the most is “-leez” for the “-l^ss” syllable above. I can’t recall ever running into the hard “g” pronunciation (“angle ease” in your example), but I have run into the “AHN-heh-less” (or similar) numerous times.
I listen to a lot of historic radio tapes, and back in the 30’s and 40’s “Lows Angle Ease” was much more commonly used. It seems to have been supplanted almost entirely by “Loss ANN-j^-l^ss” sometime around 1950. Maybe it was the influx of non-native Californians, or maybe it was Jack Webb, who usually pronounced it “Loss ANN-j^-l^ss” on Dragnet.
Some of the news announcers use a variation where Los is pronounced “Lows” and they use the “-eez” ending.
But I discount that as announcer stylization - tv & radio announcers are encouraged to use stylized emphasis for call-letters etc. for “branding” purposes.
I’ve always just said El Ay.
Here’s what wiki sez “Los Angeles (pronounced /lɒs ˈændʒələs/ los-AN-jə-ləs; Spanish: [los ˈaŋxeles],”
My grandparents always used Lows Angle Ease. My parents and the rest of us use Loss Anjilis, but they still say San Peedro and Santee Ana.
I listen to a lot of old time radio (OTR) and it is very common to pronounce Los Angeles with a hard “g” sound.
It wasn’t till the late 40s when the radio announcers switched from Los ANGLE eez to Los An-jell-us
The only time I’ve ever heard it ending with /-i:z/ was when Arlo Guthrie rhymed it for a song in Woodstock–
Coming into /lɒs ændʒəˈli:z/
Bringing in a couple of keys
Don’t touch my bags if you please
Mr. customs man*
*1960s slang for kilograms of marijuana. Does this ever date me. You kids lay off of my grass
Spanish: |los 'anxeles| [lohss AHN heh lehss] ETA: I got this wrong, it’s |los ˈaŋxeles| as said above
Generic Yank: |lɒs ˈændʒələs| [loss ANN jə ləs] (the standard pronunciation on Wikipedia’s LA page), or, “Ellay” 
British: |lɒs ˈændʒəliz| [loss ANN jə leez], I think
They still say “keys” for kilos, but it’s usually applied to coke or heroin. Marijuana is usually sold by the ounce/pound these days (unless you buy a single gram, maybe).
Loss ANN jell ess.
Damn. In grade school we were told that everything was headed toward metrics.
Markxxx and I are agreed that sometime after World War II the pronunciation of Ellay changed from having a Spanish back-of-the-throat character to an American no-throat-at-all style.
What about other California places? Is San Diego rapidly becoming san-DY-go? Has the desert changed from Mo-hahv-ee to MO-jave?
No, you got it right. Nava is from Spain, where they pronounce the sound spelled (in Spanish) as “j” or (between vowels) “g” with a much more guttural harshness than how it’s pronounced in Latin America, where it’s essentially equivalent to the English “h” sound.
You can hear this by asking a Latin American Spanish speaker to imitate Spain Spanish. They will change the sound spelled “c” or “z” from an “s” to a “th”, they will change the sound spelled “s” to a funny kind of slushy whistle, and, as I said, they will change the “j” sound to the German or Scottish “ch” sound.
Plus, they’ll thrown in the word “tio” to mean “dude” or “guy”, whereas in Latin America it just means “uncle”.