Tongue twisters used for play and articulation practice.
Whether you’re just having fun or trying to improve your diction, you might as well enjoy it! In this article, we’ll introduce tongue twisters that make wordplay fun and interesting.
We’ve gathered tongue twisters that let you feel the charm of language—some with delightful word sequences that make you want to say them out loud, and others that are amusing even if you don’t quite understand the meaning.
They can also be used for children’s play or oral exercises for older adults, so please use them as a reference!
This is a tongue twister about blue giant water bugs, red giant water bugs, and golden giant water bugs.
Maybe these days there are many people who don’t really know about giant water bugs.
Giant water bugs are a type of aquatic true bug with sturdy forelegs, and as their name suggests in Japanese (tagame), they often live in rice paddies.
As a tongue twister, the “taga” part is tricky to say, so it’s good to practice that section separately.
Alternatively, since it’s a five-beat tongue twister, I also recommend first practicing the rhythm “tan-ta-ka-ta, tan-ta-ka-ta, tan-ta-ka-ta” at a brisk tempo.
Since I couldn’t tell whether it was a mule or a donkey, I compared the mule and the donkey, but I still couldn’t tell whether it was a donkey or a mule.
Mule or donkey, tabi shop, singer—fun tongue twisters, recreation, oral function training
It’s a tongue twister that repeatedly uses two-letter words from the R-row.
The difficulty of this phrase lies in the fact that the words “raba” (mule) and “roba” (donkey) sound similar.
You need to quickly switch between the sounds “ra” and “ro” while distinguishing them accurately, which easily leads to tongue tangling.
The key to saying it is to start slowly and clearly mark the boundaries between each word.
With practice, you can speed up, but be careful not to sacrifice accuracy.
It’s a tongue twister that simply refers to three generations of turtles—parent, child, and grandchild—and since each word is short, it seems easy to say.
There’s no complex scene description, but because it mentions three generations, you can sense the age differences and picture turtles of different sizes lined up.
As a tongue twister, the final “grandchild turtle” is the key point—the sequence of voiced consonants where “grandchild” connects to “turtle” makes it hard to pronounce.
It may help to shape your mouth clearly for the vowels and put some force into the voiced sounds.
When a pig hit a pig, the pig that got hit hit back the pig that hit it, so the pig that hit and the pig that got hit both collapsed.
[Tongue Twister Navigator] When a pig hit a pig, it got hit back. Because the pig hit the pig that the pig had hit, the pig that hit and the pig that got hit both collapsed. | Japanese Tongue Twisters | Hayakuchi Kotoba |
It’s a comedic tongue twister that depicts a quarrel between pigs.
At first glance it’s hard to follow, so let’s split it into two parts.
In the first half, “When a pig hit another pig, the pig that got hit hit back the pig that hit it,” it shows a pig striking another and getting counterattacked.
The second half, “The pig that hit and the pig that was hit both toppled over,” depicts both of them falling down, ending in a draw.
If you clearly distinguish between “buta” (pig) and “butta” (hit), your success rate will improve.
