problems with the ucwords fuction

i´m getting an error with the ucwords function... if i use it to uppercase the first letter of every string and that string is something like $string="this is a foo string"; echo ucwords ($string); my output is ok This Is A Foo String but if i use some special chars like $string"este é um teste em português"; echo ucwords($string); my output is Este É Um Teste em PortuguêS"; every char right before any special character is in upper too any one know an other funcion who works? thanks in advance Cassiano Dal Pizzol