Rob Hatch

[Libertine Seguros]

I recognise that the letters æøåäö and others are not as easy to pronounce for a native English speaker as they are for a Scandinavian/Nordic citizen like myself, but I expect a commenatator of winter sports to take his/her time to the get familiar with the letters and names. I have never understood why the Bø brothers for instance have to be pronounced closer to bow and that their names can't even be spelled the correct way on the screen (Boe is just stupid).

IBU have standardised their spellings without diacritics in the last few years. They used to inclde all the umlauts and accents etc., but since about 2014 when they updated the Datacenter they put all the data in there without them. As a result Boe follows suit with Bjoerndalen, Goessner and so on. They even had Maekaeraeinen for a bit, but then reverted to Makarainen even though that's incorrect, because the spelling was so unintuitive. I think Tarjei Bø was already spelled as "Boe" before that, though.

 

[tobydawq]

I certainly expect a commentator to make an effort to pronounce names and places correctly, but I'm also prepared to overlook mistakes when it comes to the names of lesser known riders. But in those cases I think they should try to learn it for the next race he or she competes in.

Some cities and place names might actually have an offical English name, but I don't think Fribourg has that, so I certainly wouldn't pronounce it in any other language than French, although it would be alright to do it in German and in a regional dialect as well.

I understand why some people might think that Hatch overpronounce names and find him a bit pretentious, but considering that he is a polyglot it would definitely be ignorant of him not to do it the right way. He obviously also makes mistakes sometimes, but when it comes to Sagan, tobydawq's reaction alone makes it a perfectly fine choice in my book

I recognise that the letters æøåäö and others are not as easy to pronounce for a native English speaker as they are for a Scandinavian/Nordic citizen like myself, but I expect a commenatator of winter sports to take his/her time to the get familiar with the letters and names. I have never understood why the Bø brothers for instance have to be pronounced closer to bow and that their names can't even be spelled the correct way on the screen (Boe is just stupid).

Also, as I have said before, ø is not difficult to pronounce if you concentrate on learning it for half a minute. It's a matter of shaping your mouth a given way, it's not technically difficult at all, like rolling your r's for example.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Does anyone have a clip of Hatch pronouncing Fuglsang and Vingegaard?

'Amazing save!' - Jakob Fuglsang prevents high-speed crash on descent

Jakob Fuglsang makes an amazing save on a descent during his Liège-Bastogne-Liège victory.

www.eurosport.com

Vingegaard didn't sound right in the 2019 Tour of Poland, and I think it has mostly been Kirby/Smith/Kelly who has commentated the races he's been at the front in since then. Brian Smith actually got nearly right in País Vasco after having spoken to Brian Holm about him, which was quite an improvement after he failed to even recognise him a few months before.

Tour of Poland video - Jonas Vingegaard wins Stage 6 to take race lead

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) edged a three-way breakaway sprint to win Stage 6 and move into the overall lead at the Tour of Poland.

www.eurosport.com

 

[Axel Hangleck]

I'd say he doing the right thing; British sports commentators are notorious for anglicising everything - and it's just accepted. The Portuguese footballer, who plays for Man Utd is alway pronounced as Fer-Nan-Dez; yet that's not how his name is pronounced...
Yet on the FIFA 19/20/21 - the Scottish commentator (Derek Rae of ESPN) pronounces it correctly - and you get comments on You Tube wondering who he's talking about....

 

[EliseeReclus]

I am a fairly new follower of cycling on Eurosport. Why is it that Rob Hatch has to pronounce names of riders and places in accents that are not understandable to English speaking viewers? Watching the last stage of the Tour de Romandie, I gave up trying to understand the town of the finish. In the end I had to go to Google to find out where it was and it was nothing like the way he pronounced it! I have seen him defending these garbled pronunciations as 'respect', how about some respect for paying viewers! When he is pronouncing names and teams in a peleton you might as well not bother listening it is just garbled gobbledegook! The viewers in UK want to know what is going on and are poorly served by this commentator who seems more interested in pushing his linguistic qualifications than informing viewers what is going on, THAT is his job. BTW Ron Bahrain has never been pronounced Baaahhhrain!

I don't really know where to start with this, he pronounced Fribourg correctly? I would find it patronising for a commentator to dumb down their pronunciation when they are facing a global audience. Especially as if there is a new and particularly difficult or strange word or name they normally spend time explaining it.

I'm an English speaker also and think it's completely normal to aim for as close to the accurate pronounciation as is possible. Indeed we don't do this with our own place names that we cannot intuit the spelling from the pronunciation easily. It would drive me up the wall if - for instance - a commentator pronounced Gloucester as Glue-chester or Leicester as Lie-chester.

Indeed, how far must this go? Should the end city of Paris-Nice be pronounced as 'Nais'? Is the Tom Simpson memorial on Mont Ven-tooks? Are there 21 hairpins on Alpay D Hooez?

 

[Netserk]

He says Fuglsang correctly (but emphasises the K in Jakob a bit too much) but I haven't heard him say Vingegaard, I don't think.

Hmm, given that Fuglsang is from Silkeborg, I'd prefer a softer pronunciation.

 

[Okeydokey]

I give up, we are now saying we have to use the dialect of the area the rider comes from. I'll switch the sound down and read the subtitles and leave you Europhile to speak among yourselves!

 

[Netserk]

'Amazing save!' - Jakob Fuglsang prevents high-speed crash on descent

Jakob Fuglsang makes an amazing save on a descent during his Liège-Bastogne-Liège victory.

www.eurosport.com

Vingegaard didn't sound right in the 2019 Tour of Poland, and I think it has mostly been Kirby/Smith/Kelly who has commentated the races he's been at the front in since then. Brian Smith actually got nearly right in País Vasco after having spoken to Brian Holm about him, which was quite an improvement after he failed to even recognise him a few months before.

Tour of Poland video - Jonas Vingegaard wins Stage 6 to take race lead

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) edged a three-way breakaway sprint to win Stage 6 and move into the overall lead at the Tour of Poland.

www.eurosport.com

Ugh, gaard pronounced as guard hurts my ears.

 

[RedheadDane]

I give up, we are now saying we have to use the dialect of the area the rider comes from. I'll switch the sound down and read the subtitles and leave you Europhile to speak among yourselves!

So now we're Europhile because we prefer commentators to pronounce the names of riders and places in the correct language? Especially considered that for several of us it's literally our own language! Yeah, I'd prefer that commentators at least try to pronounce the Danish names correctly, even if I realise that some of them can be a bit tricky.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Round of applause for this thread, perfectly pitched trolling

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Ugh, gaard pronounced as guard hurts my ears.

Yes, I hate it too. Kirby also gave "Vingegout" a try in País Vasco before he gave up and asked Smith.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Round of applause for this thread, perfectly pitched trolling

Trying to make up for the treatment "." received.

I end up getting Paul (RIP), Phil, Bob, and whatever American ex-cyclist they get (I liked CVDV) and rely on how they pronounce the names. Then some I learn different from here or the yearly cycling TdF games that come out on Xbox, though I don't know how well the commentator pronounces the names there.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Yes, I hate it too. Kirby also gave "Vingegout" a try in País Vasco before he gave up and asked Smith.

How do you pronounce it? It’s one which every anglophone commentator seems to do differently?

 

[Netserk]

I mean, it's more or less jaw with a classic g as in good instead of the j. (but with a short rather than a long vowel)

Here you have it with bonde- instead of vinge-: https://ordnet.dk/ddo/ordbog?query=bondegård

Combine it with vinge: https://ordnet.dk/ddo/ordbog?query=vinge

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I mean, it's more or less jaw with a classic g as in good instead of the j. (but with a short rather than a long vowel)

Vin ge gaw? Or Vingaw?

 

[Kaptain Kool]

Indeed, how far must this go? Should the end city of Paris-Nice be pronounced as 'Nais'? Is the Tom Simpson memorial on Mont Ven-tooks? Are there 21 hairpins on Alpay D Hooez?

Actually Paris-Nice with both words pronounced in English might be good (or even nice). Then the name of the race could be viewed as an opinion about the capital of France rather than two different locations.
It would also open up the possibility of a new stage race called London-Better.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Like Movistar have done, every team should just post soundbites of the riders pronouncing their own names on their website (which of course would make Logic angry at some of them for doing it wrong, but at least many other fans/commentators would appreciate it).

 

[Netserk]

Vin ge gaw? Or Vingaw?

Depends on where in the country you are from. Our queen would clearly pronounce the e. If you're from Jutland, it's almost silent.

 

[BlueRoads]

Depends on where in the country you are from. Our queen would clearly pronounce the e. If you're from Jutland, it's almost silent.

Thanks for the explanation. I think in Germany it has become common to call him something like "Win-ye-guard"

 

[SHAD0W93]

Nothing beats Alessandro Valverde.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Nothing beats Alessandro Valverde.

I think Horner's "Van Honeybook" in his Ronde video comes close.

 

[EliseeReclus]

If we're getting into local dialects I greatly look forward to the commentators best attempts at using proper Bärndütsch at the Tour de Suisse.

 

[RedheadDane]

Like Movistar have done, every team should just post soundbites of the riders pronouncing their own names on their website (which of course would make Logic angry at some of them for doing it wrong, but at least many other fans/commentators would appreciate it).

And then the guy conducting the Team Talks interview with Mathias Norsgaard last year even asked him to pronounce the name the way he would pronounce it, rather than the English-way he'd used on the website.

 

[Parker]

I've yet hear any European commentator say Qhubeka properly with the click sound

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0ted1U7n6k

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I've yet hear any European commentator say Qhubeka properly with the click sound

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0ted1U7n6k

Keep on going while stumbling seems like a perfect summary of the team's recent history.