What Would The Geordies Think?
I don’t mind soccer – I’m just not a big fan of it.
But compared with the other sports out there, I’d say it has the best-looking players. Yes, I’m shallow – whatever.
My brother was a huge fan of the English Premiere League and that goes way back to the years between ’97-’00, when I was still in high school, where I often saw him glued in front of the television late in the morning watching either soccer matches or commentaries. When I was home during school holidays, I’d stay up with him while having idle chit-chats about anything.
It was during those chats when I noticed that on local telly, International soccer matches mostly had their original commentator’s voices completely turned off or else substituted by Indonesian ones. Moreover, they always had their own preliminary discussions between local commentators expressing their expert opinions on who was going to kick whose ass, or the other.
Now they even festooned the whole thing up with quizzes and competitions so the audience at home wouldn’t feel so bored watching them people yippy-yappying about soccer even though everybody was like, ‘Yeah, yeah.. shut up already and let us watch the game!’
Of course I didn’t understand a single thing about what those ‘so-called experts’ were saying, but I couldn’t help feeling dismayed when Newcastle United was playing, in which they pronounced Newcastle as ‘Noo-ka-stel’.
I was speechless then; didn’t they know? I mean surely they would have listened or at least heard of the British commentators who must have mentioned the correct pronunciation of it for ooh… I don’t know, a gazillion times, at least?
Or were they just plain ignorant? Could it be that they were too lazy to learn how to pronounce the name correctly, which in return misled thousands of Newcastle United fans in
The ‘t’ in it is supposed to be silent, you know? And I really don’t care if people think this is a silly topic to fuss about, but it’s just wrong. I can’t help but feel sorry for those
And now, having a fiancé who is clearly a soccer fanatic, I was ready to embrace myself to the fact that I had to let soccer back into my life – again. However, I was in for a total shock when I realized that, after eleven years of commentating – I don’t know – thousands of soccer matches, those commentators still pronounce it the wrong way.
And I wouldn’t have noticed this if my fiancé didn’t bring it up in the first place – in which he happened to say ‘Noo-ka-stel’ and thus received appalled looks from me as a response. It’s ‘NOO-KA-SULLLLLL!!!!!!!’, I practically yelled at him – even tried to twist his ear lest he tried to give some attitude just in case he wasn’t convinced.
Him: ‘Really? But those guys say it’s-’
Me: ‘I KNOW what they say and they are WRONG! Arghhh…’ clearly, I was exasperated.
So what happens now is that he keeps teasing me by saying
And when Newcastle United is on the telly and those Indonesian commentators are talking, he’ll be pointing it out blatantly and say, “Look! They mispronounce it as well! It’s not my fault that I did it too!’ whilst we both fall about laughing our arses off.
Bloody eejits.
12 comments
Therry, you should give them a break. Honestly, compare to others like Thai or Vietnamese, Indonesians speak English much, much better.
Just recently I had realized that my massage saga in Saigon was due to the way of those Vietnamese people pronounce English words. I just realized then they say “foo” they actually meant “full”, not “foot”. Long story short, you wouldn’t get lost saying Noo-kas-tEl, but you’d certainly can get totally wrong body part massaged….
it’s back to mispronounciation huh? hehehehehe….try going to TA and buy ice cream at swirl’s. my sis and i had a laugh reading their poster…OUT LOUD.
it’s more of bad grammar really
@finally woken:
I read your massage saga article – oh man, what a day! Thanks for the tips, I’ll make sure to remember that when I ever visit Vietnam
Perhaps the reason why people from Vietnam, China and Korea have more difficulties in speaking English is due to their tongues being accustomed to different pronunciation (L = R, and vice versa).
I once stayed with Korean students who pronounced ‘Loreal’ as ‘Lawyer’ and I felt sorry for them b/c even thought I’d taught them how to say it, they were obviously struggling to get it right!
Indonesians do speak much better English than some other Asian countries, but in this Newcastle case I think they just can’t be arsed to say it the correct way
@Cn:
Chanel = Channel
Performance = penampilan; as in “Lihat saja performance-nya, dari bajunya aja udah ngga meyakinkan”.
I personally think Indonesians are very good when having to deal with written English, but when they have to speak it, all hell breaks loose…
Therry, am an EPL addict like your brother. I think the commentators are as nervous as Kevin Keegan (the Noo-kastel coach) for their series of bad-luck. The Geordies has hired and fired coaches at the speed of a roller coaster this year. Well am exaggerating a bit…but really the owners expectation are way too much. I don’t think Kevin Keegan will last long over there.
@Elyani:
Not much of a soccer fan but I read a bit about Noo-ka-stel’s honours bit from Wikipedia (the one which says what cups they’ve won etc) and it’s not looking pretty good… isn’t it? well I compared it with Arsenal so..yeah…he3x.
my friends from taiwan said that it was difficult for them to pronounce english words correctly coz their written-langguage was characters, not alphabets…so maybe it’s one of the factors?
but there’s no excuse for indonesiannnn T_T
@Cn:
Hey, I thought about that too, last night! I just realised that countries like Taiwan, China, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and Japan (have I left anything out?) use all these special characters, instead of alphabets like us.
Somehow I’m reminded of my holidays to Thailand in which the hotel staff couldn’t speak English so I had to improvise with Tarzanese language
sometimes those commentators made me so angry with their point of view. can u imagine how they said that indonesian soccer league as one of the most gorgeous league in south east asia..errrgghhh…i’m sure they’d think again if a hard solid stone landed on their head while soccer chaos happen in the stadium..yeaah..it happens 2 me..over and over again…d**n
@Ingki:
“…indonesian soccer league as one of the most gorgeous league in south east asia”
Err.. riiiiiiight, does that include the soccer fields as well which are decorated with puddles of water, plus uneven soccer grounds that trip over the players while they step on deep gaping holes every now and then, making water splashes everywhere?
Dang, maybe you should cover another type of sports instead … err… golf do you fine?
I think it’s what so called Indonesiation of english words, for me it’s ok lah, it’s just our Indonesian way to pronounce. Nice to know you and this blog.
salam,
Wazeen
@Wazeen:
Nice to meet you too!
Yes, Indonesia tends to indonesianise the English language, kind of like the way Singaporeans speak Singlish, I guess.