Archive for December, 2010

The two big stories in last week’s football revolved around the el Clasico clash between Barcelona and Real Madrid and FIFA deciding on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup host countries and these stories  feature in the Good the Bad and Ugly review section of the show. We also try to predict who will come out on top in some of the big games in our weekly predictions – three from Europe and three from South America. We also have a main report on Club World Cup which takes place in the United Arab Emirates and starts next week. For more football news come to our site, read the posts, listen to our main reports and check out our links section.

Also, we were recently asked by CNN what we thought about the proposal from Japan’s 2022 World Cup bid to offer travelling supporters a device that would translate ‘football language’. You can read Damian’s response to this intriguing question here.
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FEATURED POSTS

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PREDICTION

This week’s featured match sees Godoy Cruz take on Vélez Sarsfield in the Argentinian League. Below is Damon and Damian’s  predictions – what do you think?

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FOOTBALL EXPRESSION

This week’s English for football phrase is to turn a corner which means to improve a bad situation. It is not truly a football phrase but is commonly used in the game, particularly when a team starts to play well or to gain positive results after going through a bad patch. West Ham have had a very bad start to the season but after last week’s win over Wigan in the Premier League and Wednesday’s Carling Cup thrashing of Manchester United it seems that West Ham may have finally turned the corner. To turn a corner.

Click here for more football cliches and football phrases.
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This week’s QUIZ QUESTION:

Which countries have hosted the FIFA World Cup more than once ? Hint – there are five.

Answer next week.

The answer to last week’s question, which team won the 2009 Brazilian League was a. Flamengo
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Come along to our online shop and browse books and DVDs related to football and English language teaching and learning.

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For all students of the beautiful game

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 Print This Post | Football Phrases | Football Clichés

Continuing with our look at the world of football language, we post an interview from 2007 that we carried out with manager Adrian Byrne on what kind of clichés he uses and why. You can listen to the interview by downloading the file above and you will find explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) at the foot of the post.

Transcript

Damian: Yes, so on today’s show we are talking about footballing clichés and to help us understand a little bit more about what they are we interviewed a manager from England, a non-league manager, about what kind of clichés he uses and why.

Damian: Adrian, how are you doing?
Adrian: Yes, very well thanks, Damian.
Damian: OK, talk a little bit about clichés.
Adrian: Well, cliches, I mean they’re … I think the general public they watch ‘Match of the Day’, you know, players tend to come out with the same things, managers tend to come out with the same things. Clichés you hear them again and again and, you know, it kind of … people think, ah, stupid footballers, stupid managers, but to be perfectly honest I think the thing about clichés is they’re clichés because they are very often true and they’re very often right.
Gareth: Which is a cliché in itself
Adrian …in itself.

Damian: Can you give us an example?
Adrian: Well, you know, ‘over the moon’ I mean, you know, the elation of scoring, the elation of winning, you know, that’s how you feel ‘over the moon’. continue

 Print This Post | Football Phrases | Football Clichés

We are often asked here at languagecaster.com all kinds of questions about the language of football: the meaning, the origin of certain words and phrases and why is it that some players and managers use clichés all the time? This article looks at recent improvements in translation software and wonders if it’s possible for the language of football to be translated? You will find explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) at the foot of the post.

When we were recently asked by CNN what we thought about the proposal from Japan’s 2022 World Cup bid to offer travelling supporters a device that would translate ‘football language’, we were intrigued. The idea of electronic translators does sounds appealing but as two teachers who have to deal with students using translation software on a regular basis we have to say we are still to be convinced of their accuracy. Furthermore, the fact that we feature a weekly football phrase on our podcast in order to help language learners who love the game perhaps demonstrates that the translation device would have to be fairly sophisticated in order to capture the subtleties of this kind of language. To translate a specific discourse such as football, we wonder if indeed it would be possible to capture the nuances and the sub-texts of the ‘beautiful game’. continue

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On this week’s podcast we feature the FIFA Club World Cup which is held in the United Arab Emirates. Remember on this week’s show you can also:

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continue

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 Print This Post | Subscribe: Weekly Football Phrase

Every week during the 2010-11 season, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché for learners of English who love the sport. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase and you can also read the transcript below that. You can find many more examples by going to our football phrase page here football clichés here and our huge football glossary here.

To turn a corner.mp3 | See the complete list here

Transcript

This week’s English for football phrase is to turn a corner which means to improve a bad situation. It is not truly a football phrase but is commonly used in the game, particularly when a team starts to play well or to gain positive results after going through a bad patch. West Ham have had a very bad start to the season but after last week’s win over Wigan in the Premier League and Wednesday’s Carling Cup thrashing of Manchester United it seems that West Ham may have finally turned the corner. To turn a corner.

 Print This Post | Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Lucky 5 for Barcelona and Dimitar Berbatov, Real Madrid lose the plot and corruption at the heart of FIFA. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast. Explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) can be found at the foot of the post.

The Good

5 is the magic number, at least if you are Dimitar Berbatov or a player or fan of Barcelona. The Bulgarian striker scored a remarkable five times in Manchester United’s 7-1 thrashing of Blackburn Rovers last weekend and to tell the truth he could have had a couple more only for the keeper’s heroics. Barca did not score as many as United but they did play better opposition, well supposedly they did! The Catalan side absolutely demolished their arch-rivals Real Madrid in the Clasico last Monday. Leo Messi was fantastic and he helped to set up two goals for David Villa, while Pedro, Jeffren and the impressive Xavi scored the others. Barcelona go top of La Liga and have now won the last five of their meetings with Real Madrid. The magic number indeed. continue

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It will soon be time for the Club World Cup, the competition that pits together the champions from the six football confederations – Europe’s UEFA, South America’s CONMEBOL, Central and North America’s CONCACAF, Asia’s AFC, Africa represented by CAF and Oceania – although the latter has to take part in a play off with the host country”s champions.

Since 2009 the competition has been held in the United Arab Emirates at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. The contest has known many formats, many names and several host countries in its history. Before 2000 it was known as the Intercontinental Cup and played between the Copa Libertadores Cup and European Cup winners over two legs home and away; in 2000 it became the FIFA Club World Championship and was held in Brazil. 2004, and it was back to the Intercontinental Cup but played in Japan. 2005 saw a new name, the Club World Championship, before 2006 saw it settle on the name and format we have now – the Club World Cup.

So, who will be competing for the honour of being crowned the World’s best side? continue

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Can Rafa Benitez’s Inter turn the corner and make it two wins in a row when they go to Lazio? Will Man United slip up at Blackpool, a potential banana skin? Have Shalke enough to overcome Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich? All of these matches plus two crucial final games in the Brazilian league and an intriguing tie in Argentina feature on this week’s languagecaster.com podcast.Check out some language used in making predictions here. Our guest predictor this week is Lilika a Liverpool fan living in Japan.