De kat krabt de krullen van de trap.
Meaning: A 'kr' cluster drill — Dutch consonant pileups that beginners approach with dread.
Language: Dutch
Literally: The cat scratches the curls off the stairs.
Category: Warm-up
Origin: One of the Netherlands' most-quoted tongue twisters.
More tongue twisters — Warm-up
- Red lorry, yellow lorry. — The 'l/r' alternation drill — deceptively short, yet almost impossible to say fast withou…
- Sex laxar i en laxask. — A short 'x/lax/ks' crunch — Swedish's 'x' sounds like 'ks', which doubles the trap.
- Capra neagră sare piatra, piatra-i neagră, capra-i albă. — A rapid 'c/pr/n' alternation that gains speed — and the colour-swap at the end trips the…
- 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.
More Dutch tongue twisters
- Als vliegen achter vliegen vliegen, vliegen vliegen vliegen achterna. — The same noun/verb homograph trap as the German version — vliegen does triple duty.
- De koetsier poetst de postkoets met postkoetspoets. — Turns on the gap between the Dutch 'oe' and 'o', with a run of 'ts' and 'p' stops layered…
- Wij smachten naar achtentachtig prachtige nachten. — Five words carrying the Dutch guttural 'cht', the sound foreigners find hardest to produc…
- Liesje leerde Lotje lopen langs de lange Lindelaan. — Eight consecutive l-words, with the vowel behind the l changing every time.
From our proverbs
- Still waters run deep — Quiet people often have great depth of character.
- It takes a village to raise a child — Community support is essential for child development.
- If it ain't broke, don't fix it — Don't change something that's working well.