>They generally try their best, but the mileage varies :). They have enough trouble with my last name - I've had a lot of fun listening to them stumbling on the "lj" ligature (should be the same as Portuguese lh), and of course they can't imagine the accent being on the second syllable - they always try to put it on third, for some reason.

oh, yes, your last name is not the easiest one. :)



>so these guys you mentioned above (set encoding to east-european now) would be spelled and pronounced Ronaldinjo Gauèo, Dida, Rikardinjo, Denilson, ®uninjo.


hmm, I don´t know whether there´s in English an equivalent of Portuguese "nho", "nha"... "nho" in Portuguese must sounds like "in o" in English, but spoke fast, gluing the two parts...
so, "Ronaldinho", in English must be something like:
"Ho" from "Hope", "Now", "Gee" from "gee string" <s>, and "Nho", from "In o"...

wow, "Ronaldinho" = "HoNowGeeInO". :)))