Blogwatch: El Blog del Rinoceronte

Filed in archive Blog Watch on September 3, 2007

You know when you look at a foreign team's name and just shrug your shoulders because you've got no hope of pronouncing it correctly? Well now there's no excuse. El Blog del Rinoceronte - an English language blog that focuses mainly on South American footy - has a whole stockpile of posts titled Talking Smart: Foreign Names which gives the correct pronunciation of clubs from around the world.

Here's a quick sample:

Dagenham & Redbridge (Eng.)

[dagnem]. Mute "h" in a well-known suffix.

De Graafschap (Dut.)

In Dutch language "sch" is read not as it is in German. The name is pronounced as [grafs-hap].

Deportes Quindío (Col.)

The stress in the name of this Colombian city and club falls onto "i" which goes after "d".

Diósgy�'r (Hun.)

In Hungarian language "s" is pronounced as [sh], while "gy" - as a palatalized [d]. So, the name of the club would be [diosh-dior], with [dior] being one syllable.

Dnipro, Shakhtar, Chornomorets (Ukr./Rus.)

Since Russian language is very wide-spread in Ukraine, sometimes you can see the names of the local clubs spelled in Russian manner: Dnepr, Shakhtyor, Chernomorets

My favourite thing is that they include pronunciations of English clubs like Dagenham & Redbridge, proving that just as we scratch our heads over how to pronounce the names of obscure Ukrainian clubs, the rest of the world is similarly puzzled by oddly named English clubs.