Tongue twisters are fun because they difficult to say and you often get the words and letters all mixed up! However, they are a good way to improve your pronunciation. Often they are hard to say because they feature alliteration, which just means using a lot of words together that have the same letter or sound at the beginning of each word, such as in the tongue-twister “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers.”
Tongue twisters exist in many different languages. Here are some examples.
Toni tagħna tani tina talli tajtu tuta tajba
Our Tony gave a fig because I gave him a good berry.
豚は豚の歌を歌う。
Buta wa buta no uta o utau.
The pig sings the pig’s song.
Hrvoje sa Hvara hrani hrčka
Hrvoje from Hvar island is feeding a hamster
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiarii?
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
This last one, in Latin, is also a tongue twister in English. Here are a few more in English.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Seven slick slimey snakes slowly sliding southward.
What noise annoys an oyster most?
A noisy noise annoys an oyster most.
And finally, our favourite, and, we believe, the most difficult. Try saying this three times, quickly!
“The Leith Police dismisseth us.”
