English Tongue Twisters
A curated set of 8 tongue twisters in English — literal translations, real meanings, and where each one comes from.
- Red lorry, yellow lorry. — The 'l/r' alternation drill — deceptively short, yet almost impossible to say fast without merging the colours.
- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? — A 'w/ch/ck' drill that accelerates comically — and nobody really knows the answer.
- The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. — Believed by Guinness to be among the hardest in English — 'six/sick/sheikh/sheep' blur into one mass.
- Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. — A 'b / t / tt' plosive drill that bounces between Betty, butter, and bitter.
- She sells seashells by the seashore. — The definitive 's' versus 'sh' alternation — the tongue has to switch place of articulation on almost every word.
- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. — A relentless 'p' plosive drill; a peck is an old dry measure of about nine litres.
- Unique New York. — Three words that jam the 'y/n/k' sequence together — repeat it and it collapses into 'you-neek-new-nork'.
- Pad kid poured curd pulled cod. — Alternating repetition — the consonants swap at the start of every other word, which is what makes it break down.
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