Capra neagră sare piatra, piatra-i neagră, capra-i albă.
Meaning: A rapid 'c/pr/n' alternation that gains speed — and the colour-swap at the end trips the tongue.
Language: Romanian
Literally: The black goat jumps over the stone; the stone is black, the goat is white.
Category: Warm-up
Origin: Romania's most beloved tongue twister; found in children's books across the country.
More tongue twisters — Warm-up
- Ular melingkar-lingkar di atas pagar pak Umar. — A rolling 'l / r / ling' drill that loops like the snake it describes.
- Unique New York. — Three words that jam the 'y/n/k' sequence together — repeat it and it collapses into 'you…
- O peito do pé de Pedro é preto. — Five 'p' words in a row, with the vowels shifting underneath each one.
- Ząb, zupa zębowa; dąb, zupa dębowa. — Drills the nasal vowels ą and ę, which only differ from plain a and e by the nasal hum.
- Packa pappas kappsäck. — Three words, six hard k and p stops, and almost no vowel variety to rest on.
- なまむぎ なまごめ なまたまご (Nama mugi, nama gome, nama tamago) — A nimble warm-up for the Japanese 'na / ma / ge' syllables.
From our idioms
- A umbla cu cioara vopsită — To try to deceive people with falsehoods.
- A se face luntre și punte — To do absolutely everything to help.
- A freca menta — To waste time; to loaf around doing nothing useful.