tongue twister by english on my own.

Tongue-Twisters


A tongue-twister is a sequence of words that is difficult to pronounce quickly and correctly. Even native English speakers find the tongue-twisters on this page difficult to say quickly. Try them yourself. Try to say them as fast as possible, but correctly!


A proper copper coffee pot.


Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran.


Long legged ladies last longer.


Mixed biscuits, mixed biscuits.


A box of biscuits, a box of mixed biscuits and a biscuit mixer!


Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper.
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled pepper?
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper,
Where's the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?


Pink lorry, yellow lorry.


Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather.


She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore.


The sixth sick Sheik's sixth sheep is sick.
[Sometimes described as the hardest tongue-twister in the English language.]


Swan swam over the pond,
Swim swan swim!
Swan swam back again -
Well swum swan!


Three grey geese in green fields grazing.


We surely shall see the sun shine soon.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a tongue twister as “a word, phrase, or sentence difficult to articulate readily because of a succession of similar chiefly consonantal sounds varied by small changes“.

OK, translated to plain English, that means a bunch of words that are really hard to say.

Now, for voice-over professionals, tongue twisters are a great way to keep the mouth in shape. And they can help English students, too. After all, if you can say a tongue twister, you can say just about anything.

Every Monday for the next few weeks I’m going to post a new tongue twister here on English Experts. You can click on the audio link below the tongue twister to hear me do my best to read it out loud. Listen to me and then try to repeat the tongue twister yourself.

If it doesn’t come easy at first, don’t get discouraged. Just keep at it until you get it and have faith that your efforts will pay off.

We’ll get started with a famous tongue twister called “Betty Botter.”

Here goes.

Betty Botter bought some butter,
But, she said, “the butter’s bitter;
If I put it in my batter,
It will make my batter bitter;
But a bit of better butter,
That would make my batter better.
So she bought a bit of butter,Better than her bitter butter,
And she put it in her batter,
And the batter was not bitter;
So t’was better Betty Botter
Bought a bit of better butter.