How to say: Barack Obama
11:38 UK time, Tuesday, 23 January 2007
A weekly guide to the words and names in the news from Catherine Sangster of the BBC Pronunication Unit.
This week's pronunciation is Barack Obama, who seems certain to run for the U.S. Presidency in 2008. His name should be pronounced buh-RAAK oh-BAA-muh. When he first came to prominence, there was some disagreement about his first name, which was also sometimes pronounced buh-RACK or even BARR-uhk, but our recommendation is based on the pronunciation he uses himself - he can be heard saying his own first name here.
(For a guide to our phonetic pronunciations, click here.)
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