be familiar with sb

[joham]

The following sentence is taken from a test paper:

Some people may know little about football, but when it comes to the Golden Ball winner Kaka, they must be familiar with him.

I suspect the second part of the sentence should be 'they must know a lot about him'. And 'be familiar with him' is wrongly used here. Am I right?

Thank you in advance.

 

[shalstudent]

The sentence is right.

It means that people may not be very familiar with football but when it comes to Kaka (a football player or a sportsman), they may recognise him.

Be familiar with means to Recognize.

 

[joham]

The sentence is right.

It means that people may not be very familiar with football but when it comes to Kaka (a football player or a sportsman), they may recognise him.

Be familiar with means to Recognize.

Macmillan:
familiar 3: behaving in an informal and friendly way towards someone you do not know very well especially so that they feel you do not respect them: Don't be too familiar with customers.

According to the explanation of the dictionary, I thought the 'familiar with him' in my original post was wrong.

Could I ask native speakers to help me please? Thank you in advance.

 

[Anglika]

Macmillan:
familiar 3: behaving in an informal and friendly way towards someone you do not know very well especially so that they feel you do not respect them: Don't be too familiar with customers.

According to the explanation of the dictionary, I thought the 'familiar with him' in my original post was wrong.

Could I ask native speakers to help me please? Thank you in advance.

Shalstudent has given you the correct definition.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

The following sentence is taken from a test paper:

Some people may know little about football, but when it comes to the Golden Ball winner Kaka, they must be familiar with him.

I suspect the second part of the sentence should be 'they must know a lot about him'. And 'be familiar with him' is wrongly used here. Am I right?

Thank you in advance.

It's fine.

be familiar with =

know
know of
recognized
be acquainted with
know something about

[I edit copy and have tutored college writing.]