But it's the horribly difficult ɕ, isn't it? 'Tonlös alveolopalatal frikativa'.
He's not that good anyway.
Pronouncing foreign players' names
- Thread starter Plechazunga
- Start date
He's not that good anyway.
It is the really simple ones commentators get bogged down on - such as whether to pronounce the J when talking about Jose Mourinho.
The all time classic has to be Ed De 'Goo-ieee' - that is just scandalous.
The all time classic has to be Ed De 'Goo-ieee' - that is just scandalous.
i thought the general rule of thumb with foreign names, if said incorrectly or if misunderstood, was to just say it progressively louder each time in English.
I agree with whoever mentioned the "r" on the end of words.
DROGBAAAAAAAARRR!!
So annoying.
DROGBAAAAAAAARRR!!
So annoying.
It is.
Funny -and quite appropriate for the thread- how a foreign surname got switched to local lingo here... then goes back to the place of origin and people struggle with it.
He's from a Spanish speaking country and I assume his name is Spanish, where they pronounce all the letters of a word, meaning it would be Coh-Ah-Tez, and until a Spaniard or South American tells me otherwise, I'm calling him Coh-Ah-Tez.
His Dad is Scottish apparently so unless he spanishified it himself, its coats.
The Norwegian commentator today said that's the way he pronounces it himself.
Correct. His Scottish dad is Mr Coates, I stand corrected, and will make it my duty to inform everyone else of this fact.
I meant the commentator said he pronounces it the Spanish way.
No Liam, it just means that you can add Coates himself to the list of people you must correct. Coats til I die.
See, now I don't even know how to pronounce it when reading it.
I'm going to pronounce it Coats, then people will be like, 'don't you mean Coates?' And I'll be like, 'well no, he has a Scottish dad you see.'
I'm going to pronounce it Coats, then people will be like, 'don't you mean Coates?' And I'll be like, 'well no, he has a Scottish dad you see.'
Watching an Everton game recently, the commentator (Peter Drury, I think) kept saying "Feh-lie-nee" rather than "Feh-lay-nee." The only person I've ever heard say it like that.
It always strikes me as a bit awkward when you have two commentators sat next to each other who pronounce somebody's name differently. Like Gary Neville's "Ro-sick-ee" and everybody else's "Ro-siz-ski"
It always strikes me as a bit awkward when you have two commentators sat next to each other who pronounce somebody's name differently. Like Gary Neville's "Ro-sick-ee" and everybody else's "Ro-siz-ski"
Essentially, Sebastián Coates is Hyacinth Bucket.
I'd say it's supposed to be like 'lie' in the middle. At least that's how it'd be pronounced if it were a French word.
I'd say it's supposed to be like 'lie' in the middle. At least that's how it'd be pronounced if it were a French word.
MOTD commentator (I think it was Motson) a week or so ago pronounce Ryo Miyaichi as Mee-ya-chee-he.
That was new to me. I've always heard Mee-yak-ee.
That was new to me. I've always heard Mee-yak-ee.
I know his cousins and they have all been called (and use) "Coats". It just happens that himself being a football player the Nacional fans never took any notice and called him the way they read it in Spanish.
It was actually asked in an interview when his transfer was announced. "So noy you will be called Coats again..." and he answered he "would always be Koh-ah-tez".
I suppose he pretty much takes it as his nickname by now so insists on being called thus.
Coats then
Mee-ya-ee-chee
Park Ji Sung is better pronounced Baek Ji Se-ung. But the B sound is really somewhere between P and B, the k ending is more of a glottal stop, and the Se-ung isn't really 2 syllables.
It'll be funny hearing how "Hazard" will be pronounced
People with names that are English words too don't have a chance. That H and that D are getting pronounced.
The commentator tonight kept calling Alaba "a larva". Weird pronounciation was more funny than annoying for once.
But it's the horribly difficult ɕ, isn't it? 'Tonlös alveolopalatal frikativa'.
He's not that good anyway.
By Swedish standards he's quite alright!
Last night they kept getting Kroos and Muller's pronunciation wrong. Was slightly annoying. Although not as bad as Alan Green trying to say Assou-ekotto.
Jamie Redknapp - "Jose Bosswinger"
Well known fact that scousers love adding 'boss' to nearly anything.
Brotherton tonight drove me mad with his 'Pirlo', pronounced to rhyme with 'furlough'.
He even made a shite Motty-style rhetorical flourish based on it: 'a pearler from Pearl-o!'
It does raise the question of how to pronounce it though. I say it as I'd say 'Peer low' - i.e. not in an Italian accent (being English I don't pronounce the 'r', and my 'o' is a diphthong) but also not as Brotherton says it, like an English word would be pronounced if it happened to be spelt that way.
In other words I seem to follow my own rules 2) and 3) in the OP.
People keep saying this about 'r' on the end. I assume you don't mean an actual 'r', just that they pronounce the word with a long 'a'? This is how English people pronounce all words ending in written (i.e. historical) '-ar', like 'car'.
The only time an English commentator would put an actual 'r' there is before a word beginning with a vowel, as you would pronounce the one in in 'car exhaust'. So you would hear an 'r' in the phrase 'Drogba(r) in attack'.
But this is completely normal English (as in, England English) pronunciation. We covered this 'intrusive r' earlier in the thread. A Scottish or Irish commentator, and most US ones, would never say 'Drogbar' even before a vowel, as they don't have intrusive r, but pronounce all written r's.
The weird thing about the commentators' pronunciation is that they give it a long 'a' at all, where most of us have a schwa ('uh' sound) - 'Drogba' almost rhymes with 'dogma'. But that would still get the 'r' before a vowel when spoken by (most) English people.
He even made a shite Motty-style rhetorical flourish based on it: 'a pearler from Pearl-o!'
It does raise the question of how to pronounce it though. I say it as I'd say 'Peer low' - i.e. not in an Italian accent (being English I don't pronounce the 'r', and my 'o' is a diphthong) but also not as Brotherton says it, like an English word would be pronounced if it happened to be spelt that way.
In other words I seem to follow my own rules 2) and 3) in the OP.
People keep saying this about 'r' on the end. I assume you don't mean an actual 'r', just that they pronounce the word with a long 'a'? This is how English people pronounce all words ending in written (i.e. historical) '-ar', like 'car'.
The only time an English commentator would put an actual 'r' there is before a word beginning with a vowel, as you would pronounce the one in in 'car exhaust'. So you would hear an 'r' in the phrase 'Drogba(r) in attack'.
But this is completely normal English (as in, England English) pronunciation. We covered this 'intrusive r' earlier in the thread. A Scottish or Irish commentator, and most US ones, would never say 'Drogbar' even before a vowel, as they don't have intrusive r, but pronounce all written r's.
The weird thing about the commentators' pronunciation is that they give it a long 'a' at all, where most of us have a schwa ('uh' sound) - 'Drogba' almost rhymes with 'dogma'. But that would still get the 'r' before a vowel when spoken by (most) English people.
it is supposed to be peer-low
Actually it's pyre-la. I asked an Italian.
Yeah, this. I think it was Jonathan Pearce who kept pronouncing it that way. All the years I've known him it's been a hard 'k' - Kallstrom, not 'Shellstrum'. How is it pronounced?
Oh, Simon Kjaer as well. I'm hearing Ky-air to rhyme with 'air' and 'Care', whereas I've always thought it rhymed with car.
Is that 'Azar'? No 'h' or 'd'? What about his first name? So many ways that one could go.
Hold on, I've always pronounced Pirlo as in pearl-oh, and so has my Italian friend.
Why would 'pirl' be pronounced any other way in an English/British accent? Think of girl, whirl, swirl etc.
Why would 'pirl' be pronounced any other way in an English/British accent? Think of girl, whirl, swirl etc.
I think the rule I generally follow is that I pronounce it as close to the proper pronunciation as I can get without sounding like a tosser. In most cases that means it's pretty far away from what it should be.
I definitely go for peer-low.
I definitely go for peer-low.
I think you heard it (very) wrong.
Well would you pronounce, say, the 'Inge' in Alf-Inge Haaland to rhyme with 'minge'?
What the thread's saying is that following British orthographic rules in pronouncing foreign names leads to crap pronunciation, in the main. As in the Rosicky example in the OP: 'c' in Czech is pronounced 'ts', so pronouncing it to rhyme with Ricky seems (to me) to be mangling it too much.
On the other hand, you can take these things too far and end up doing a (usually crap) impression of a foreign accent.
In the case of Pirlo, pronouncing it like an English word leads it a very long way from the Italian. For various reasons to do with the historical development of vowels and consonants in English, -ir, -er and -** ended up in most of England as a long mid vowel with the 'r' lost (except before another vowel). In most of America it's a short mid vowel with the 'r' remaining intact (or kind of becoming part of the vowel). In much of Scotland and Ireland the three different vowels remain distinct, plus the 'r' is still there (so the vowels in 'fur', fir' and 'fern' are all different).
In Italian the vowel is similar to English 'ee' as in 'pee', and the (rolled) 'r' is never dropped. That's quite a long way from 'pearl-o' and sounds daft IMO.
I reckon either you're mishearing your Italian mate or he's Anglicized his pronunciation. Or maybe there some local Lombardy dialect pronunciation that I don't know about which Pirlo uses.
I think that's a pretty good summary of what I was arguing for. Don't use non-English sounds if you can help it, but don't just follow English spelling rules or you end up with completely random shit.
If you want to be really cool you can use their nicknames like 'The Vulture' for Butragueno or 'Der Kaiser' etc. (don't know any current ones).
The atomic ant is a fantastic one.
So Kagawa. I've heard it pronounced loads of times, but its yet to stick into my head.
Are we stressing the Ka or the ga?
He should get Shinji on the back of his United shirt; its a much cooler name.
As far as I know that's pronounced pretty close to how it's spelt in English.
From the Wiki site on Japanese phonology it seems that the 'w' is somewhat different from ours, and also the 'g' tends to get kind of weakened between vowels in same way it does in Spanish, it turns into a sound a bit like the French 'r'. But I think attempting that stuff would likely end up sounding rubbish...