For those of us wondering about the various commentators' attempts to pronounce player names, could those with the knowledge possibly given a guide to the pronunication (using English vowel/consonant sounds) of the names of players from the various teams?

I think we did this in a previous tournament way back, and it threw up quite a lot of surprises (to those of us who've had to suffer English commentators).

Erm, which ones do you want to know? I can help you with Spain, if you like, but I don't really fancy trotting out pronunciation guides for the whole squad!

Romania's first team line up:
Lobont, Contra, Goian, Mutu, Nicolae pretty much as you'd imagine.
Tamas - Tomash (Hungarian name)
Rat - Ratz
Radoi - Ruhdoi
Chivu - Key-voo
Cocis - Kotch-ish (Romanianised version of Hungarian name Kocsis)
Nicolita - Nickolitzuh

Possible that Dica (Deekuh) will replace Cocis in tomorrow's game

Here's are some of the more unpronounceable Polish players, with a very rough transcription. I expect Silent Bob will correct me.

Boruc - BO-roots
Wasilewski - Vasi-LEV-ski
Zewlakow - Zhev-WA-kov
Bak - Bonk
Lobodzinski - Wobo-JIN-ski
Zurawski - Zhoo-RAV-ski
Krzynówek - Kshin-OO-vek
Piszczek - PEESH-chek
Saganowski - Sagan-OV-ski

Edit: it's a right pain in the arse that the new board can't do a lot of foreign letters. Is this something that can be changed?

Note: These are Amsterdam accent pronunciations. I’m not very good on the Queen’s Dutch.

Edwin Van der Sar = Edvin f’n* der Saar

*Van is pronounced a bit like fun without the ‘u’

Maarten Stekelenburg = Maar-t’n STAKE – uh –lun - berg

Henk Timmer = as written

Ibrahim Afellay = as written

Wilfred Bouma = Vilfred BOW – ma

Tim De Cler = As written (In French at least, It’s a Hugenot name)

Johnny Heitinga = Jjjjjjjohnnie HEIGHT – in – ga

Joris Mathijsen = YOUR-iss ma – THYSS* – en

* To rhyme with rice

Mario Melchiot = Mario MELK – ee – ot

Andre Ooijer = AN-dray OY – er

Giovanni van Bronckhorst = As written

Orlando Engelaar = As written

Nigel de Jong = Nigel Duh Yong

Arjen Robben = Aryun Robben

Wesley Sneijder = Ben - ya – meen Wesley Snyder (So NOT Shnyder)

Rafael van der Vaart = RA-Fay-El – F’n der faart

Demy de Zeeuw = Demi – Duh – ZAY – ooh

Ryan Babel = Ryan BAH – bel

Klaas Jan Huntelaar – As written

Dirk Kuyt = Durrrr – rrrruk KOWT

[Dirk is one of those Dutch words that is almost impossible for English people to pronounce properly. I've been here 20 years and I still can't get it right. It's pronounced in two distinct syllables with a very rapidly rolled 'R'.]

Ruud van Nistelrooy = Rud f’n NISS – el roy

Robin van Persie = Robin f’n PAIR – see

(So absolutely NOT Van Percy)

Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink = As written with an F replacing the V.

Marco van Basten = Marco f’n BAST – uh

Johan Cruijff = Johan Crowff

I can't think of anyone in the German team who's particularly hard to pronounce, but how are the English commentators dealing with Jogi Löw?

Are they using the correct, Barry White-style "Lurve"?

I think the general rule is 'however David Pleat said something - that can be eliminated from the list of pronunciation choices'.

QUOTE:
Johan Cruijff = Johan Crowff

But is that "Crow" as in "Look at those crows flying up there" or "Ow" as in "Ow! I've just trodden on a plug"?

RTE's George Hamilton seems to have the best handle on them.
Mind you, we Irish don't make it easy either - Paul McGrath was pronounced to rhyme with 'path' for years,instead of the correct 'McGraa'.

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:

QUOTE:

QUOTE:
Johan Cruijff = Johan Crowff

But is that "Crow" as in "Look at those crows flying up there" or "Ow" as in "Ow! I've just trodden on a plug"?

I might be wrong, but isn't it something like the sound someone from Northern Ireland makes when saying the word "cow"?

Aidan: 'McGraa' vs 'McGrath' is just the difference between badly-mangled Gaelic and atrociously-mangled Gaelic, surely?

Great thread, this. I'd already griped on another thread about Jonathan Pearce calling Poland's no.14 "Zu-La-Kov" and I can see that there have been other howlers.

Another good one to remember is that "ão" at the end of Portuguese names does not sound like "ow", it sounds like "awn". So Simão is pronounced "See-Mawn".

Bak = Bonk; obvious, really. Can't see it catching on though.

The commentators seem to struggle a bit with that really complicated name Klose. KLOH-zuh.

I'm happy that I need not suffer the rape of Rudi Völler's or Berti Vogts' surnames any longer.

Bak = Bonk; obvious, really. Can't see it catching on though.

It is obvious when you see the little hook under the "a", which the new board, infuriatingly, won't show. Strange as it may seem to look at, Polish is pronounced exactly as it is written.

The German commentator, to his credit, pronounced it correctly the other night.

It means "horse-fly", by the way.

Alderman Barnes wrote:

QUOTE:
it's a right pain in the arse that the new board can't do a lot of foreign letters. Is this something that can be changed?

Have you tried the Code option?

Code:

ą

edit: that was the Polish lower-case "a" with the ogonek (hook) under it when I typed it. Looks like the board won't even let you smuggle it in using the 'code' function.