Pronunciation of footballers' names

Many countries’ commentators mispronounce foreign names. French commentary is horrendous with English names. When Russians say “Fulham”, it sounds like “f*сk ‘em”.

When Henry played for Barça, Spanish commentators used to pronounce it “Enri” (like the first two syllables of “Enrique”) and it drove me mad.
 
Can't remember who, but there was a commentator who decided pronouncing Tuanzebe was too difficult and so was calling him by his first name a couple of weeks back. Only problem was he was calling him Alex! Might have been Martin Tyler.
 
Is that not because he has the ö?
I’m not really sure to be honest , I don’t hear it too often as I don’t play him ;)

Funny thing is, as i pointed out in his thread (i think) a while back, there's actually no o or f sound in his name when pronounced in Swedish :P
It's more like "Lindeloev".


Also want to add the way many English speaking commentators pronounce Solskjær is quite bad.
There's no K, A or E sound in his name :lol:

Just say "Sol-share", and you're good.
 
Funny thing is, as i pointed out in his thread (i think) a while back, there's actually no o or f sound in his name when pronounced in Swedish :P
It's more like "Lindeloev".


Also want to add the way many English speaking commentators pronounce Solskjær is quite bad.
There's no K, A or E sound in his name :lol:

Just say "Sol-share", and you're good.

Yeah that’s how the guy pronounces it in Fifa. My general rule is if one English commentator pronounces it different to all the others then he’s probably the one person saying it right. Unless I’m watching BT.
 
The one that's really annoying me is ndombele.

A lot of commentators are pronouncing it as "enn- dombele". Really emphasising the N before dombele.

Surely it should be "ndom-bele" (with almost a silent n)
 
Last edited:
Well “ch” and “h” aren’t actually pronounced very differently. Both are voiceless fricatives.

There’s no logical reason for a hard K sound to appear. Although I guess a lot of English people pronounce loch/lough as “lock” so it’s at least kind of consistent.

Yeah, I'd agree there is no logic to saying it like that, I can only assume it's because the English spelling is mostly Docherty. Even if you take the way the name Leahy is pronounced in Ireland, some Leahy's will say it as Lee-hee and some say it as La-hee, it just depends what part of the country your from.

I actually remembered earlier that I used to watch a lot of games on streams from some Arabic channel in college, from what I remember the commentator would say O'Shea as Ojaaay, he would also roll the R's for Rrrrrooneee and Rrrronnaldo.

Then I thought of this, they should all react like this.

 
Yeah that’s how the guy pronounces it in Fifa. My general rule is if one English commentator pronounces it different to all the others then he’s probably the one person saying it right. Unless I’m watching BT.

One of the FIFA commentators is Derek Rae who is usually pretty spot on with pronunciations.
 
The one that's really annoying me is ndombele.

A lot of commentators are pronouncing it as "enn- dombele". Really emphasising the N before dombele.

Surely it should be "ndom-bele" (with almost a silent n)

I think that’s quite normal for French pronunciations of African names. I’ve noticed a lot of French commentators say “Embappé” too.

I find “Guh-nabry” quite irritating although that seems to be how the Germans have decided to pronounce it. Surely it’s “Nyabri”?
 
Just say "Sol-share", and you're good.

That's certainly better than "sol-ska-yar" (and similar variations).

Best instruction I've come across:

Say "COOL - SHAM".

Then replace "C" with "S" and "M" with "R".

"SOOL-SHAR".

Key part being that the "o" in "sol" is closer to the vowel in English words like "cool" or "pool" (or "rule") - and the "æ"/"ae" is closer to the vowel in English words like "sham", "wham" or "bang".

ETA

The "o" in "sol" does NOT sound like the "o" in "top".
 
Last edited:
Key part being that the "o" in "sol" is closer to the vowel in English words like "cool" or "pool" (or "rule") - and the "æ"/"ae" is closer to the vowel in English words like "sham", "wham" or "bang".

Yeah, that's about right.
The double o in English sounds more like how we say it in Norway, and i used to explain the æ by saying it's sort of like how you say the first a in Batman :P
Wham sounds the closest in my head.
 
That's certainly better than "sol-ska-yar" (and similar variations).

Best instruction I've come across:

Say "COOL - SHAM".

Then replace "C" with "S" and "M" with "R".

"SOOL-SHAR".

Key part being that the "o" in "sol" is closer to the vowel in English words like "cool" or "pool" (or "rule") - and the "æ"/"ae" is closer to the vowel in English words like "sham", "wham" or "bang".

ETA

The "o" in "sol" does NOT sound like the "o" in "top".
What about

Oh-da-guard?
 
What about

Oh-da-guard?

Once you realise that the final D in Norwegian and Danish is silent it all makes more sense. Aa/å is also pronounced like “aw”.

The Danes are like the Portuguese with their mumbled words ignoring half the consonant. Schmeichel is “Smy-gl” and Jørgensen is “Yön-sn”.
 
What about

Oh-da-guard?

The guard bit is quite a bit off.
Most of the time we don't pronounce the D at the end of words or names, so "guar.." would be more correct.
Ø is a bit like how you say the u in cnut.

What's the "da" bit about? :P

I guess it looks a bit funny for people form other countries, but there's no A-sound in Ødegaard :lol:
Same with Haaland, only the last A is pronounced a....

AA = Å in Norwegian, which is pronounced like the O in boat, goat, bloat, etc. :)
 
Pronunciation of Moran by most English commentators makes me throw up. They make is sound like “meringue” without the “g “ on the end

also, find the relatively recent “McGraaar” version of McGrath galling. I know we just don’t have the Irish version of th or gh in English but it just sounds fecking pretentious. Much rather it rhyme with “path” even though that’s also not right

in Australia, the winemaker McGuigan always pronounced “McGwiggan“
 
Oh man, it's unbearable. Pure butchery.

Not getting the middle vowel sound is understandable because it’s a pretty unfamiliar sound. Annoys me when people say “De Broyn” and just ignore the final E though. Reminds me of a bloke I knew who insisted on pronouncing Schalke to rhyme with chalk.
 
Pronunciation of Moran by most English commentators makes me throw up. They make is sound like “meringue” without the “g “ on the end

also, find the relatively recent “McGraaar” version of McGrath galling. I know we just don’t have the Irish version of th or gh in English but it just sounds fecking pretentious. Much rather it rhyme with “path” even though that’s also not right

in Australia, the winemaker McGuigan always pronounced “McGwiggan“

Mark KinSELLA was another one. There must be some Irish pundits around who could have had a word.
 
Is there a difference in pronunciation for people from Øslø to people from Stævængår?

Disregarding accent (or lilt, or whatever) - the main difference would be that the latter dialect features a distinct guttural R (like in standard French or standard German).
 
Not getting the middle vowel sound is understandable because it’s a pretty unfamiliar sound. Annoys me when people say “De Broyn” and just ignore the final E though. Reminds me of a bloke I knew who insisted on pronouncing Schalke to rhyme with chalk.

S-Chalk! :lol:
The "De Broyn" version is painful to listen to. I can totally get that the middle part is unfamiliar, but...just learn it? I think it annoys me know because I've got a non-English first name and surname, and it kills me a little inside every time that's not pronounced right.

It blows my mind a little that somebody like De Bruyne could reach that status where they're one of the best in the world at what they do, yet have their name not even said correctly by so many people. It's not even slightly off...
 
It blows my mind a little that somebody like De Bruyne could reach that status where they're one of the best in the world at what they do, yet have their name not even said correctly by so many people. It's not even slightly off...

Professional broadcasters still pronounce the GOATs name as you would for Lionel Hutz so are you really surprised?
 
S-Chalk! :lol:
The "De Broyn" version is painful to listen to. I can totally get that the middle part is unfamiliar, but...just learn it? I think it annoys me know because I've got a non-English first name and surname, and it kills me a little inside every time that's not pronounced right.

It blows my mind a little that somebody like De Bruyne could reach that status where they're one of the best in the world at what they do, yet have their name not even said correctly by so many people. It's not even slightly off...
According to Wikipedia it's [ˈkɛvɪn də ˈbrœynə]. It says the œ should be pronounced like fur.

So we should be saying something like De Brur-ner, right?