How to say: Names in the beautiful game
09:54 UK time, Thursday, 12 February 2009
An occasional guide to words and names in the news from Christine Haunz and Jo Kim of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Pronunciation Unit
Football has featured prominently in the news recently as the transfer window closed last week and clubs and their managers parted company.
Monday saw the shock departure of Luiz Felipe Scolari from Chelsea FC. Today, it was confirmed that Guus Hiddink, who has close ties to Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and is current manager of the Russian national team, has been appointed as interim manager until the end of the season.
The pronunciations of these names are as follows (stressed syllables are in upper case):
Luis Felipe Scolari: loo-EESS fell-EE-pi skol-AR-i (-ee as in meet, -i as y in happy, -ol as in olive, -ar as in car).
Guus Hiddink: KHUESS HIDD-ink (-kh as in Scottish 'loch', -ue as in French 'vu'). You can also hear this name pronounced GUUS (-uu as in book) in some English contexts.
Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich: ruh-MAAN ar-KAAD-yuh-vitch ab-ruh-MOH-vitch (-uh as a in ago, -tch as in church, -oh as in no).
Other footballers recently in the news include the Confederation of African Football's Player of the Year Emmanuel Adebayor, Arsenal's last minute transfer Andrey Arshavin and Brazilian midfielder Kaká.
Emmanuel Adebayor: em-an-WELL add-eb-igh-YOR (-igh as in high)
Andrey Arshavin: an-DRAY ar-SHAA-vin (-ay as in say, -ar as in car, -aa as in father)
°²¹°ìá: kack-AA (-aa as in father)
Finally, the pronunciations of some names in football which have inspired debate:
The established anglicisation of Dirk Kuyt's name is DURK KOWT (-ur as in fur, -ow as in now).
Xabi Alonso's own pronunciation of his name is SHABB-i al-ON-soh (-sh as in ship, -al as in pal, -oh as in no).
The name of Czech goalkeeper Petr Čech is pronounced PET-uhr CHEKH (-uh as a in ago, -ch as in church, -kh as in Scottish 'loch'), and the pronunciation for José Bosingwa's name is zhoo-ZAY bozz-EENG-gwuh (-zh as s in measure, -oo as in boot, -z as in zoo, -ay as in say, -ee as in meet, -ng-g as in finger).
To download the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Pronunciation Unit's guide to text spelling, click here.
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