Tongue Twisters

[Liquid]

Those carefully woven lyrics designed to be difficult to pronounce. What are your favourite tongue twisters? I'm a word and language geek and curious to know.

We have an international forum. Many members from around the world, many languages known to us. English is the only acceptable AUP language but if you have any good tongue twisters from your own language, post them with a translation. We might get a laugh just out of the meaning. Those of you for whom English is a second language might get a laugh out of the meaning of the English ones.

Alliterative Prose

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?

Peck being an old unit of measurement equivalent to 2 dry gallons / 9 litres

She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
The shells she sells are sea-shells, I'm sure
For if she sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
Then I'm sure she sells sea-shore shells

Betty Botter bought a bit of butter
The butter Betty Botter bought was a bit bitter
And made her batter bitter
But a bit of better butter makes better batter
So Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter
Making Betty Botter's bitter batter better

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck would chuck wood?
A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck
If a woodchuck would chuck wood

Twisters Designed To Be Repeated Quickly

Red lorry, yellow lorry

Good blood, bad blood

A cricket critic

Irish wristwatch

A proper copper coffee pot

Ken Dodd's dad's dog's dead

The black bloke's back brake block broke

---

Peter Piper and Woodchuck are my favourite poem ones. Back brake block and Red/Yellow lorry are good repetition ones.

What's that? You don't have a favourite tongue twister? Sort it out, mate.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

Not exactly a tongue twister, but it came with a challenge in itself, 20 seconds limit to finish

Be ready to twist your tongue though

 

[W3H5]

He not a pheasant plucker, he's a pheasant plucker's son.

Say that fast without a slip of the tounge.

 

[Liquid]

Variant:

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son
I only pluck the pheasants 'til the pheasant plucker's come

 

[kikie]

The entire English language is a tongue twister for me personally.

 

[W3H5]

Variant:

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son
I only pluck the pheasants 'til the pheasant plucker's come

I can just about get through the first verse with moderate speed without plucking up, there's no way I'd manage the full thing.

There's a Chinese tounge twister which is based on tone because all the words are the same but the tones vary. It's not worth me posting because I don't know the full translation but it's something like:

Shi shi shi shi shi shi ....

Which means something like:

Ten four yes fourty fourty four fourteen, etc.

 

[polysmut]

Bruce Forsyth, Bruce Forsyth, Bruce Forsyth...

Unique New York, unique New York...

Шла Саша по шоссе и сосала сушку
is Russian & means "Sasha walked along the road and sucked a biscuit".

Edit:
I've just been told that
Sex laxar i en laxask
is Swedish for "Six salmon in a salmon box."

 

[Ken]

My favorite is one to be said repeatedly: toy boat. Go ahead and try it. Say it three times fast. I've already preloaded a laugh gif for you.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I like tongue-twisters as vocal warm-ups for drama classes. My two favourites at the moment at:

"Unique New York, New York's unique; you need unique New York."

and

"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick."

 

[Barra333]

The entire English language is a tongue twister for me personally.

That is rich coming from someone who speaks Flemish/Dutch

 

[Robin]

"Put the slippery soap on the slippery slope"

 

[W3H5]

My favorite is one to be said repeatedly: toy boat. Go ahead and try it. Say it three times fast. I've already preloaded a laugh gif for you.

I'm thinking this one doesn't work with my accent. I can't figure out what it's meant to be.

 

[Ken]

I'm thinking this one doesn't work with my accent. I can't figure out what it's meant to be.

It must be an accent thing, as I find it impossible to say. I have heard that it's an American radio disc jockey test as well.


EDIT: An interesting article on the "toy boat" tongue twister.

 

[Danny]

Silly Sally swiftly shooed seven silly sheep.
The seven silly sheep Silly Sally shooed
shilly-shallied south.
These sheep shouldn't sleep in a shack;
sheep should sleep in a shed.


There. You even learned something about sheep maintenance.

 

[TVR27]

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

 

[kikie]

That is rich coming from someone who speaks Flemish/Dutch

It's the truth. I don't get it. Are you Australian living in Holland?

De kat krabt de krollen van de trap.

Hottentottontententoonstelling.

 

[TVR27]

The rain in spain falls mainly on the plain.

In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen.

 

[Dan]

I like tongue-twisters as vocal warm-ups for drama classes. My two favourites at the moment at:

"Unique New York, New York's unique; you need unique New York."

and

"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick."

My high school's drama club always enjoyed these warmups before shows:

"I am a mother pheasant plucker. I pluck mother pheasants. I am the most pleasant mother pheasant plucker who has ever plucked a mother pheasant."

"I am the very model of a modern major general. I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral." We had to say this faster each time.

"The big black bug bit the big brown bear, the big black bug bit the big brown bear, the big black bug bit the big brown bear." We had to say this faster each time and *try* to sing it in tune.

 

[TVR27]

The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.

Brisk brave brigadiers brandished broad bright blades, blunderbusses, and bludgeons -- Balancing them badly.

A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk,
but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.

Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry.

 

[The87Dodge]

Pad kid pulled curd poured cold.

Try and repeat it multiple times.

 

[Liquid]

As if Jyrki Juhani Järvilehto isn't tricky enough for a non-speaker, here's a one I was told about by a Finnish friend:

Kokoo kokoon koko kokko! Koko kokkoko? Koko kokko.

Spoiler

Gather lots of wood for the bonfire. Lots of wood? (Yes) Lots of wood.

 

[W3H5]

Not sure if this is the correct place for this but I found it a bit of a tongue twister. It's a text that I used to use to test trainee teachers with and most of them would struggle. I'll admit I got a few words wrong myself but I'm happy to say I nailed the majority of it.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

 

[Barra333]

It's the truth. I don't get it. Are you Australian living in Holland?

De kat krabt de krollen van de trap.

Hottentottontententoonstelling.

Fair enough, but some of the sounds in Dutch require some serious practice too. "G" sounds like in gemeente and knowing exaclty how to truncate -en sounds are rough. Since I am only here for 3 years (9 months to go), the motivation to learn never really got going.

I don't envy people trying to learn English though. The post above this one sums it up nicely.

 

[ECGadget]

Not sure if this is the correct place for this but I found it a bit of a tongue twister. It's a text that I used to use to test trainee teachers with and most of them would struggle. I'll admit I got a few words wrong myself but I'm happy to say I nailed the majority of it.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Was very happy when I first came across this that I got it all right ^^

Luke Luck likes lakes.
Luke's duck likes lakes.
Luke Luck licks lakes.
Luck's duck licks lakes.
Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes.
Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.

Got to love Dr Seuss!

 

[W3H5]

Was very happy when I first came across this that I got it all right ^^


Got to love Dr Seuss!

Quite impressive to get it all correct on the first attempt, I'll admit I made a couple of slips on my first read through.

I do love Dr. Seuss. I read with my students and sometimes even I'm caught out and make a mistake.

 

[ECGadget]

Quite impressive to get it all correct on the first attempt, I'll admit I made a couple of slips on my first read through.

I do love Dr. Seuss. I read with my students and sometimes even I'm caught out and make a mistake.

Thanks lol, I think it is probably because I grew up reading absolutely everything I could. Plus I did not read it too quickly. I should try it again within a time limit! And Dr. Seuss is really is trying. I had to have two attempts at that tongue twister!

 

[kikie]

Fair enough, but some of the sounds in Dutch require some serious practice too. "G" sounds like in gemeente and knowing exaclty how to truncate -en sounds are rough. Since I am only here for 3 years (9 months to go), the motivation to learn never really got going.

I don't envy people trying to learn English though. The post above this one sums it up nicely.

The "G" in "Belgian Dutch" sounds different than in Dutch from the Netherlands.