English Commentators

[holy king]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5XE4b59JfA&feature=related

 

[dutchfire]

What's the proper way to pronounce Kuyt? and hwy did you spell it the way you did?

Some announcers are prouncing it kawwwt, which I'm assuming is the proper way to pronounce it.. Kayt just doesn't sound dutch - and most announcers will pronounce his name like that.

Holy king's link has it right. I've got no idea how to do that in phonetic spelling though.

Like Cruijff, abroad his name is spelled with an y instead of an ij. Wiki It's also visible in Spyker (the former Formula 1 team), van Nistelrooij and Feijenoord/Feyenoord.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Speaking of Krzynowek, "Kritsnowa/ek" is pretty funny. They all get Krzy wrong and depending on how strong their english accent is, they say wa or we.

 

[Shekwan]

English Commentators can't say Polish names for some reason. >.>

Polish isn't an easy language to pronounce for english speakers. That's the reason.

Polish people are always coming into the shop where I work and despite speaking english I don't have a clue what they're on about. It's just the two languages are very different.

Not related to pronunciation but it was funny once a polish dude was looking for a plastic bag and he asked me for a suitcase.

 

[Sofista]

In a tragical dearth of football videos with lotsa Polish names in Italian I offer to your judgment, TLO, this basket sequence. Plenty of names, I suspect badly mangled.

 

[REDY]

How is pronounced " ł " (Suwałki)?
And name "Andrzej"?

 

[TheLastOne36]

In a tragical dearth of football videos with lotsa Polish names in Italian I offer to your judgment, TLO, this basket sequence. Plenty of names, I suspect badly mangled.

i'll take a look soon, and i'm interested in what i'll find.

How is pronounced " ł " (Suwałki)?
And name "Andrzej"?

In Polish there is no V. W is used to pronounce V. the ł is used for w. So it would be pronounced "Suvawki".

Andrzej has 'rz' which is hard to write it's prnounciation, but it's similar to the polish letter Ż and sounds somewhat like the s in the english word "Pleasure" Andrzej would be pronounced "Andsey" but with the s like in pleasure. Also the A has an accent which sounds more like "au". btw like in many other languages, J in polish is Y.

 

[King of Town]

Harry carey mispronounced a lot of names, I can't imagine if he were doing soccer.

 

[soverkun]

Many years ago I saw Real Madrid vs the danish club Odense on Eurosport. For some reason the commentator kept refering to Michael Schjønberg as something that sounded suspiciously like "scumbag".

But I know, danish names are difficult. Currently a "Mikkel Bødker" is playing in the NHL. Completely unpronounceable to most, of course, the americans most often call him "butt-car", which kind of amuses me.

 

[TheLastOne36]

How do you pronounce the ø? Is it the same prnounciation in all scandinavian languages, or do some not have the ø? i'm just curious.

 

[soverkun]

ø is used in danish and norwegian (but not swedish) and its basically the same as a german ö.
The "schjøn" in Schjønberg is for instance pronounced as german "schön".

For frenchspeaker you might say ø sounds like "eux" in deux.
I cant think of any english examples

 

[TheLastOne36]

Ahh, ok luckily i learned french pronciation in school so i could guess it out.

 

[Rossiya]

Speaking of Krzynowek, "Kritsnowa/ek" is pretty funny. They all get Krzy wrong and depending on how strong their english accent is, they say wa or we.

A "strong" English accent? What do you mean? A northern one?

To be honest, I think most English commentators usually do quite a decent job on the names. I was very impressed when an English tennis commentator managed to pronounce 's-Hertogenbosch in one go.

It's true actually. Some English commentators are really good when pronouncing names, but then some are just awful.

my mother toungue is german and i'd have a hard time figuring out how to pronounce "zienczuk". how in the world could an englishman manage to?

My mother language is English and I can pronounce it.

Everyone knows that English Commentators can't pronounce names from other languages, but from time to time, there's that really funny one! Post your Favorite!

The only names they can pronounce are French ones. They also insist on saying Italian names as French names, and saying Italian names in equally bad ways.

dee MeeCAYLAY
Yah-Kin-Tah

They make it hard for themselves. They are idiots.

 

[TheLastOne36]

A "strong" English accent? What do you mean? A northern one?

I mean a more present british accent.

It's true actually. Some English commentators are really good when pronouncing names, but then some are just awful.

I think it has to do with caring. A caring commentator would atleast go out and learn simple word combinations for example in polish, rz. Then i think they could figure out Krzynowek.

 

[Rossiya]

Aren't commentators actually given phonetic spellings of players?

 

[TheLastOne36]

I doubt it, otherwise i don't think they'd be calling Zienczuk 'zinc-zag'.

 

[Sofista]

I think the coscientious ones ask foreign colleagues from nearby booths before the start.

Sometimes, however, they thnik they know languages. "Klose" equals, for our proud commenting teams, "Close" (as in English, I mean).