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.”
Glasgow School of English.