Czy rak trzyma w szczypcach strzęp szczawiu?
Meaning: Four different Polish sibilant clusters — trz, szcz, strz, szcz — in a single short question.
Language: Polish
Literally: Does the crayfish hold a shred of sorrel in its pincers?
Category: Fiendish
Origin: A Polish classic used to demonstrate just how many distinct hushing sounds the language separates.
More tongue twisters — Fiendish
- Wij smachten naar achtentachtig prachtige nachten. — Five words carrying the Dutch guttural 'cht', the sound foreigners find hardest to produc…
- Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches? — A merciless duel between 'ch' and 's'.
- El cielo está enladrillado, ¿quién lo desenladrillará? — A brutal test of the rolled 'r' and 'l'.
- Blaukraut bleibt Blaukraut und Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid. — A 'bl' / 'br' brain-twister.
- Trentatré trentini entrarono a Trento tutti e trentatré trotterellando. — An unbroken stampede of 'tr' and 't'.
- 東京特許許可局 (Tōkyō tokkyo kyokakyoku) — A machine-gun of 'kyo' / 'kyoku' sounds.
More Polish tongue twisters
- 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.
- W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie i Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie. — The opening of a poem by Julian Tuwim, now Poland's most-quoted tongue twister — the cons…
- Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami. — Six words, almost no vowels — a single noun phrase that non-Polish speakers find impossib…
- Król Karol kupił królowej Karolinie korale koloru koralowego. — Every word starts with k, and król/Karol/korale/koloru keep re-ordering the same handful…
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