Sunday, September 2, 2007

Talking Smart: Foreign Names

Paços de Ferreira (Port.)
Sometimes the Portuguese "ç" is misinterpreted as "c". Should be [pasoosh].

Pécs (Hun.)
In Hungarian language "cs" stands for [ch] - [pech].

Rochdale (Eng.)
Actually, it's predictable - [rochdeil], but one could suspect any way to pronounce the name of this English club.

Rotherham United (Eng.)
Once again, in "-ham" suffix the "h" is mute, while English "th" should be better renedered through [t] in foreign languages, although it's not the same: [roterem].

Ruch Chorzów (Pol.)
As we already said, the accent sign over the Polish "o" turn it into [oo]. In its turn, "ch" in Polish means [h] (not mute!), while "w" is [v]. And finally, the very tricky "rz" should be rendered as [zh] or French [j]: [rooh hozhoov].

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