English Tongue Twisters

Lepapillon0311

<font face="comic sans ms"><font size="3">English Tongue Twisters
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<br>Foreword:
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<br>English tongue twisters are great for working on pronunciation, firstly, because they are FUN!  And, secondly, because they induce inervation of the tongue muscles.  You can have contests in your classes to see who can say the tongue twister, correctly, the quickest.
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<br>All tongue twisters will be purple.
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<br>1.  Shelly saw sea shells by the sea shore.
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<br>2.  Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.  Now if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many peppers did Peter Piper pick?
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<br>3.  If a woodchuck could chuck wood, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck?
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<br>By the way, Dr. Suess's book of tongue twisters is a classic.  Great for advanced EFL classes.
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<br>[Hey, Dr. Seuss.  How about a few kick backs for this ad, eh?  Oh, that's right, you've passed on, haven't you?  Okay, whoever has the copyrights, how about a few kick backs, eh?  I'm not rich, you know.  Got a family to feed.]
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<br>Okay... here some original tongue twisters that I've just made up.
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<br>For teaching the  and  phonemes: (for articulation see my Phonics Page)
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<br>First start with :
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<br>-  Three thin thieves thought a thousand thoughts.  Now if three thin thieves thought a thousand thoughts, how many thoughts did each thief think?
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<br>After the students master that one, move on to :
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<br>-  That which is theirs is neither more or less than that which is thine.
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<br>After the students master that both those above, start mixing  and :
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<br>-  This thing and that thing are better than those things.  (easy for native speakers, but not so easy for none natives).
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<br>-  The thin thief went through that thicket over there.
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<br>If you really wanna get tricky, add /t/...
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<br>- The thorn was torn from those, and now it adorns my clothes.  [NOTE:  the "th" in "clothes" is silent].
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<br>And if you are teaching in China, Japan, Korea, or any Spanish-speaking nation, you can really confuse the heck out of the students by doing a tongue twister with /s/ and  and  and , like the following:
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<br>Start with an easy one:
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<br>-  Theodore has a thin shin.
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<br>-  It should be a sin to have a thin shin, and we should call it "the thin-shin sin".
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<br>Then get progressively harder:
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<br>-  Through thick and thin, I'll dare to be there and share.
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<br>-  She sees the three seas, and he sees that she sees what she see when she sees the three seas, I think.
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<br>-  Three thousand thieves had six thousand thumbs, until they got caught, and now they have none.
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<br>-  A thick, sick, chic chick surely, thoroughly sank its shank into the tank and drank.
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<br>How about some /f/ tongue twisters?  [In Chinese, there is an /f/ phoneme, but in Korean and Japanese, there is no /f/ phoneme, which makes me wonder why they transliterate Mt. Fuji as "Mt. Fuji", instead of the correct, "Mt. Huji".]
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<br>-  Five fairies found five frogs on Mt. Huji. [NOT FUJI!!!!!]
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<br>The following tongue twister is especially for the Japanese students:
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<br>-  I have five horses and four head of fish.
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<br>For the Koreans, who have problems with /f/ and /p/...
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<br>-  The four fleas are poor fleas.
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<br>-  Let the four poor fleas flee, please.
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<br>-  Find four fleas on the floor, please.
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<br>-  Puns are fun, so have some fun with five fun puns!  [Also, see my Puns Page]
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<br>None of the following languages:  Korean, Japanese, Chinese, have the phoneme /v/, but the Koreans use /b/ for /v/, and the Chinese use /w/ for /v/.  I don't know what the Japanese do.
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<br>So, for the Koreans:
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<br>-  I put some vile bile in a file and labeled it the "Vile Bile" file.
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<br>-  "Berries vary very much," said the very berry fairy.
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<br>-  One should wear one's best vest for the fest.  In other words, one should wear one's best fest vest.
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<br>And, for the Chinese:
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<br>-  The best fest in the West is the Vest Fest.
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<br>-  I'm very wary of very scary films.
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<br>-  In Latin, "verb" means word, "verbose" means 'using many words', and "verbal" means 'of words'.
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<br>-  Valerie values volleyball very much.
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<br>And, for the Spanish-speakers:
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<br>-  She says that he says that she's special, since she's especially smart! </font></font>