隣の客はよく柿食う客だ (Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da)
Meaning: A tricky spiral on ka/ki/ku that accelerates as you try to keep the syllables distinct.
Language: Japanese
Literally: The customer next door is a customer who often eats persimmons.
Category: Fiendish
Origin: A staple of Japanese tongue-twister collections.
More tongue twisters — Fiendish
- Erre con erre cigarro, erre con erre barril; rápido ruedan los carros sobre los rieles del ferrocarril. — The definitive Spanish rr drill — unrelenting double-r from start to finish.
- Parangaricutirimícuaro — Not a sentence but a single word — a legendary 22-letter pronunciation challenge from a r…
- Didon dîna, dit-on, du dos d'un dodu dindon dont le dodu dos dodine. — A 'd' / 'din' / 'dod' avalanche that seems designed to jam the tongue in third gear.
- Hinter Hermann Hannes Haus hängen hundert Hemden raus. — A relentless 'h' aspirate drill — every word opens with the same breathy attack.
- Chi è Ciccio Capece? Ciccio Capece è un capocaccia che caccia con la cacciaballa. — A 'c/ci/ccia' onslaught — Italian's hard and soft c in the same sentence, non-stop.
- O papa papava o papo do pipo; o pipo papava o papo do papa. — A perfectly palindromic 'p' construction that reverses meaning when you swap the nouns.
More Japanese tongue twisters
- 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.
- 東京特許許可局 (Tōkyō tokkyo kyokakyoku) — A machine-gun of 'kyo' / 'kyoku' sounds.
- 赤パジャマ黄パジャマ茶パジャマ (Aka pajama, ki pajama, cha pajama) — A rapid-fire drill on colour words; the syllable shift from aka/ki/cha trips the tongue b…
- 坊主が屏風に上手に坊主の絵を描いた (Bōzu ga byōbu ni jōzu ni bōzu no e o kaita) — A sustained 'b' and long-vowel drill — bōzu/byōbu/jōzu demand precise mouth control.
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