Tongue-Twisters

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis

On Twitter* I follow germanlanguage, which is an extension of German Words of the Day. Each day, a new German word is posted with its English translation. Occasionally, links to their blog entries will be posted. A few weeks ago, a link to Zungenbrecher, anyone? was posted, and being the curious person I am, I had to read it. Zungenbrecher is a German word meaning tongue-twister, though literally translated it means tongue breaker (which is an interesting spin on the concept, I think). As I was reading the entry, I found a version of the tongue-twister we recited in the Ausspracheübungen (pronunciation practice) class I took while studying in Germany. My interest was piqued and the idea for this post was born.

To be quite honest, up until this point, I have never been much of a fan of tongue-twisters. My writing has always been far better than my speaking skills - and it shows - so I have never felt it necessary to throw tongue-twisters into the mix. I can twist my tongue on my own, thanks. But the more I searched the Internet for information about tongue-twisters, the more I came across non-native speakers using tongue-twisters to learn pronunciation of their target language. A couple things clicked in my brain at this point. 1) It explained why my Ausspracheübungen teacher had us recite a Zungenbrecher. And it was not, as previously believed, to make things as difficult for us as possible. And 2) as a future ESL teacher, I was curious as to whether using tongue-twisters as an aid to teach pronunciation actually works. This question was never really answered, so I pose the two-part question now to anyone who is an ESL (or EFL or whatever) teacher: Do you use tongue-twisters to help with pronunciations? If yes, do you think it works?

One thing I wanted to find out was what makes a tongue-twister a tongue-twister? Besides the obvious "It's really hard to pronounce this danged thing!" of course. An important feature of tongue-twisters is the alternation of similar sounds within a phrase. Take the Pearls Before Swine comic for example: the sounds /s/ and /sh/ are used in "She sells seashells by the seashore." Said quickly, it is easy to mix up the sounds. Tongue-twisters can also consist of rhymes and alliteration. "Say that three times fast!" is a common statement used when a phrase is difficult to pronounce and these difficult phrases are often tongue-twisters.

Did you know they also have naughty tongue-twisters? There are some twisters out there specifically designed so that a mispronunciation or mistake will result in a swear word or something of that sort. Take a moment to ponder the phrase "Pheasant plucker" and how it could be messed up.

Now onto the tongue-twisters!


Three English Tongue-Twisters

--->She sells seashells by the seashore

--->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,
How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

--->The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick (this is supposedly the hardest tongue-twister in English - what do you think?)
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A German Zungenbrecher



The above tongue-twister is the one I recited in my Ausspracheübungen class. It basically means: Fisher's Fritz fishes for fresh fish, for fresh fish fishes Fisher's Fritz.
For more Zungenbrecher check out Zungenbrecher, anyone? They have a couple other German tongue-twisters, as well as a fun video from a German game show of a man reciting a bunch of tongue-twisters in one minute.
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Dos Trabalenguas in Spanish

Thanks to CancunCanuck for suggesting:
--->Yo vi en un huerto un cuervo cruento comerse el cuero del cuerpo del puerco muerto.
(I saw in an orchard a bloody crow eating the hide of a dead pig's corpse)

Both Sara and CancunCanuck suggested versions of:
--->Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal en tres tristes trastos.
(Three sad tigers swallowed wheat on three sad platters)
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What are other tongue-twisters? Which is your favorite? Which never fails to trip you up? Please share! And you can also click here for a list of tongue-twisters.


*Don't know what Twitter is? Twitter is an awesome social networking tool which allows you 140 characters to answer the question: What are you doing? In addition to me, Sara, Tasha and even CancunCanuck are all on Twitter! Kyle is too, but he doesn't update his, so he doesn't get a link (sorry Kyle). Check us out, say hi, and don't worry, we're friendly. :)