Tongue Twisters in English – hone your pronunciation!

Tongue twisters are a part of every language and serve the little funny role of honing our pronunciation – learning to pronounce letters and syllables is a part of our most primary education. And while they are widely considered just little language-jokes, they can actually be of help in sharpening of our tongue.

Below: a list of tongue twisters widely used in the United Kingdom and the United States were presented. Try to give them a read!

1. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?
2. I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won’t wish the wish you wish to wish.
3. How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
4. She sells seashells by the seashore.
5. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
6. I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
7. The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.
8. She sees cheese.
9. The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us.
10. I thought, I thought of thinking of thanking you.
11. The seething sea boils like a pot on the stove.
12. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
13. How much dew does a dewdrop drop, if a dewdrop could drop dew?

Do you consider these hard to pronounce? What’s the most problematic part?

Let’s do some reverse engineering and wonder why tongue twisters are so hard to pronounce.

Let’s go with a few examples.

1. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?

So-called alliteration makes this one hard. It is the act of repeated usage of some sound within the sentence, in here, /ˈf / (f) and /w/ (w). Such a connection makes it hard to replicate the sound each time it would be supposed to be read.

5. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

The usage of homophones (words sounding like others) is a common pattern within tongue twisters. Wood / would sound similarly, same with woodchuck / chuck. It makes it hard to distinguish words from each other and complete full sentences.

This is also an example of repetitions: while normally serving as a stylistic device, here they serve the role of confusing the language user solidly!

2. I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won’t wish the wish you wish to wish.

Some tongue twisters make use of the complexity of sentences rather than other devices (although in the above example there’s also an example of a homophone – wish / witch). Sometimes different tenses or forms of verbs are used (like in example 10). Oftentimes tongue-twisting sentences are built of many layers.

To wrap things up, let’s ask ourselves a few questions:

Which of these tongue twisters caused you the most trouble?
Do you have bigger problems pronouncing tongue twisters in Polish or English?
Can you make your own tongue twister in English? Try to use the techniques above! You don’t necessarily need to make these hard and complex.