Player Name Pronunciations

[KansasFox]

16 minutes ago, It'sblueupnorth said:

It really is, it has nothing to do with respect hence why no other country bothers with it. Do you think anybody feels disrespected when called the localised version of their first name? 

I think it’s about how a person feels. In most cases it’s not hard because people tell us their names. Reading them and guessing the pronunciation is harder. 
however I do get part of your point. When I have spent some extended time in other countries and the people have used the local version of my name I have felt respected by that and accepted by them. I didn’t feel offended, I felt honored.
But if someone corrected my pronunciation of their name, it is common decency to try to get it right!

[Guest]

If you don't know how to pronounce someone's name correctly then that's fair enough, nobody is familiar with every language and their respective quirks. If you learn/are told how it's meant to be said and still deliberately get it wrong then that is pretty ****ing stupid

[ParkerPen]

19 hours ago, rugbyblue said:

David pleat when he used to commentate for itv used to pronounce Julian Joachim's name as jo-ay-kim.

 

I always did think he was a c0ck! 

Hoolian Hwackim ?

[The_77]

Timothy Castanyay. 
 

I did once speak to someone who kept referring to our former Algerian striker as Islam Salami, which was delectably ironic. 

[bovril]

Very true in my experience that Anglophones  care much more about correct pronunciation of foreign names than in other countries. Similarly we are more awkward about using translations of place names (e.g. Peking).

Edited 23 August by bovril

[Danno]

1 hour ago, It'sblueupnorth said:

See this is why it’s such a non issue with me and why you can’t take anybody seriously who agrees with it because of bollocks like this comment. 

Why would it not be the same? Do I or others not deserve the same respect as a player with a common first name just because they’re on tv? Surely if im paying manuels wages for a week they could have the common courtesy to learn the pronunciation of my name? Or is it that again it’s just a non issue and nobody cares that their name is pronounced in the localised way

Because you aren’t on television to billions of people 

hope this helps

[It'sblueupnorth]

44 minutes ago, Danno said:

Because you aren’t on television to billions of people 

hope this helps

Ah so it’s not a basic mannered respect thing it’s status, gotcha 👍

[inckley fox]

18 hours ago, StanSP said:

Disingenuous to say someone's name correctly? 

 

Isn't it disingenuous to say it incorrectly

 

It's just respectful, isn't it? Can't just have it our way just because it's English. England's way isn't always the best

I've always been Andres rather than Andrew in certain countries. They just revert to that automatically, and of course it's fine. People do ask for the correct pronunciation from time to time.

 

I often find it a bit pretentious when football commentators and 'people of that ilk' (to quote the big man) try to pronounce names correctly, and usually get it wrong. I remember Steve Coogan saying that the origin of Partridge was the fact that sports commentators have a sense of their own intelligence which isn't merited. Perhaps that's what's going on with that.

 

Another example is how Spanish people always call Queen Elizabeth 'Isabel' and Charles 'Carlos', whereas we try to call their King 'Felipe' rather than 'Philip'. It shouldn't really matter, but perhaps some English people do this to either compensate for their poor grasp of foreign languages, or in some cases to sound cleverer than they really are! I'm not sure.

 

Actually, I do this when it comes to ordering curries. So I have no right to sneer.

[Jordan]

3 hours ago, It'sblueupnorth said:

See this is why it’s such a non issue with me and why you can’t take anybody seriously who agrees with it because of bollocks like this comment. 

Why would it not be the same? Do I or others not deserve the same respect as a player with a common first name just because they’re on tv? Surely if im paying manuels wages for a week they could have the common courtesy to learn the pronunciation of my name? Or is it that again it’s just a non issue and nobody cares that their name is pronounced in the localised way

We’re just talking about commentators pronouncing names. These videos are all done on the clubs’ respective media days and go out to all of the broadcast partners around the world that cover the PL.  https://www.premierleague.com/video/single/4090694 

 

Spanish language commentators pronounce Jamie Vardy’s name correctly even though it would sound different to how the Spanish pronounce the letter j (and also that it is very close to a popular Spanish male first name).

 

How your average person that speaks Language A pronounces names and words in Language B is probably a whole other discussion.

[Phenom]

Interesting. Have been pronouncing Jannik, Mads and Abdul’s names wrong. It’s not Fata-woo.

[ChrisFilter]

14 hours ago, It'sblueupnorth said:

Ah so it’s not a basic mannered respect thing it’s status, gotcha 👍

You remind me of that Catherine Tate sketch. 
 

“Dirty, dirty bastards”

Edited 24 August by ChrisFilter

[Finnegan]

On 22/08/2024 at 22:16, It'sblueupnorth said:

But that’s entirely my point, from my experience from wherever I’ve been around around the world, nobody goes out of their way to pronounce names in the English anglicised way. 
I think it irks me so much because it’s just like going up to someone and mimicking their accent.

If an Englishman, Frenchman and a Spaniard all called Joel, only the English would go out of their way to pronounce the others ‘properly’

 

 

 

I've travelled quite a bit, maybe not quite @bovril levels, but certainly to a reasonable mix of counties.

 

I've never had people ignore how I pronounce my name when they repeat it back or try and use it. 

 

They might be heavily accented because English isn't their first language but they still try. 

 

Like, nobody on the Mediterranean - for example - has ever insisted on calling me Ricardo. 

 

I have been called Lick multiple times in Japan which, I have to say, was ****ing hilarious. But that was just people struggling with sounds they don't often make in their language. They were still very earnestly trying their best to repeat the name I was saying back to me. 

 

Dennis Praet isn't actually pronounced exactly Dennis Pratt but we don't have an equivalent exactly to their ae and it's very subtle so nobody got too pedantic about it. But people not even getting close when trying to pronounce names like Tielemans despite unavoidably hearing it correctly hundreds of times on TV and radio is pretty poor form. 

 

[Jimbo]

I would suggest, and not trying to cause offence, those who are arguing that anyone outside of England doesn't go out of their way to pronounce names correctly have only ever travelled to British favoured hotspots where they can still get a pint of Carlsberg and a Sunday lunch, they don't want any of that foreign muck and the idea of foreign cuisine in changing that Carlsberg out for a San Miguel. 

 

For example, an ex girlfriend of mine was half Spanish, and her parent lived in Tenerife. Her family over there would always go out of their way to ensure, when speaking with me, that they pronounced everything correctly in English, not just my name, but everything they said they would ask me if they had said it correctly.  The accent in Tenerife is considered "common" (much like the east midlands accent) for example they don't pronounce the S at the end of a lot of Spanish words, most certainly not with the lisp that many from mainland Spain do (for example gracias would be pronounced grasthiath in mainland Spain and gracia in Tenerife) and they would always correct her mum (the English half of her parents) who has learned Spanish in the correct way to pronounce something. 

 

In my travels, whenever I've conversed with anyone, whether that be while touring Italy, my trips to Spain, France, Belgium etc etc when I've been asked my name the person has always repeated it to me to ensure the correct pronunciation, and quite often told me the localised version of my name back, they have never been rude enough to not use my name in the way that I say it.

Edited 24 August by Jimbo

[shen]

On 22/08/2024 at 23:49, Danizen said:

Where was this when Kenneth Zohore was playing? 

In Danish it was 'Zohoar', which in itself is a bastardisation of the West African roots.

 

Another odd example is Martin Braithwaite who's times explained that his name should be pronounced without the first "i" (i.e. Brathwaite), as I seem to recall it was a spelling error in his (grand?)fathers immigration papers that was never corrected. He's since just accepted and embraced that it will forever be mispronounced.

 

Edit: Also, I find it funny how Hermansen, Iversen and Vestergaard pronounce their names in Danish, but Kristiansen pronounces it in English every time 

Edited 24 August by shen

[bovril]

I think maybe what the guy is referring to is that we have more of a cultural cringe over our reputation as monolinguals, which is understandable. But that this leads people to overcompensate a little bit sometimes. 

[bovril]

Funnily in Bulgaria when Bulgarians talked to me in English about Berbatov they often used the (incorrect) English commentator pronunciation, as if I wouldn't understand if they stressed the second syllable.

[Finnegan]

2 hours ago, bovril said:

Funnily in Bulgaria when Bulgarians talked to me in English about Berbatov they often used the (incorrect) English commentator pronunciation, as if I wouldn't understand if they stressed the second syllable.

 

This is funny to me because I used to work with a Bulgarian woman in Crouch End who had a huge crush on him when he wad at Spurs. She was always correcting people. 

 

"It's Ber-BAT-ov!" 

[RonnieTodger]

What if the bloke who calls into RL was right about “Nudiddeh” all along?

[Vacamion]

20 hours ago, inckley fox said:

. It shouldn't really matter, but perhaps some English people do this to either compensate for their poor grasp of foreign languages, or in some cases to sound cleverer than they really are! I'm not sure

 

This. 

 

Although there was one case that reversed the trend.  I was at Uni (studying languages) with a guy who went to great pains to speak grammatically correct and wonderfully expressive French and German with a very broad Yorkshire accent.

 

It was as if he was setting a challenge to native speakers.  He ended up at a very high level in the EU.

 

In contrast, I worked on my accents, speak German with a touch of South East German accent (where I did my year out) and (sadly not really anymore) I had a high level of spoken French with all the right vowels, shrugs and articulation, and I ended up in Financial Services using languages just as a hobby.