Challenging tongue twisters: Introducing high-difficulty phrases and sentences!
Tongue twisters exist in every country.
I think everyone in Japan has been familiar with them since childhood.
This time, I’ve picked out only the especially difficult tongue twisters.
You’ll find not only long, complicated ones, but also very short tongue twisters that are surprisingly hard to say.
Although tongue twisters might seem like they’re just for kids, adults can enjoy them too at parties or drinking gatherings.
If you practice in advance, you might even become the center of attention in those situations.
Now then, please sit back and enjoy!
- Tongue twisters that will make you laugh out loud! Super funny
- [Diction Training] A Collection of Tongue Twisters to Improve Articulation
- Can you say them? A collection of Nagoya-dialect tongue twisters
- A collection of long tongue twisters. Also recommended for practicing announcements and narration.
- Can you say them? A collection of Hakata-dialect tongue twisters
- Challenge together! A roundup of word games for adults
- “Chau chau, anta” — a Kansai-dialect tongue twister. A phrase only Kansai folks can say.
- [Recreation] Challenge! A roundup of tongue twisters recommended for elementary school students
- [Challenging and Fun!] Quizzes & Riddles for Adults
- Chinese tongue twisters: A collection of rao kou ling helpful for learning Chinese
- Perfect for pronunciation practice! A collection of English tongue twisters.
- [Trick Quiz] Quiz Questions That Excite Everyone from Kids to Adults
- Get Caught? Or Not!? Simple Ways to Kill Time During Class
Difficult Tongue Twisters: Introducing High-Difficulty Phrases and Sentences! (41–50)
Snowplow in operation
A tongue twister based on a scene often seen in snowy regions: “Snowplow snow removal in progress.” The tricky part of this tongue twister is that the word for “snow removal” appears twice, which makes it easy to lose track of where you are as you repeat it.
It also features several pronunciation challenges: the “jo” sound occurs twice, and the “sha” and “gyo” sounds each occur once.
Try practicing with those four points in mind.
If you master this tongue twister, you might just get better at pronouncing the small kana sounds (ゃ, ゅ, ょ).
Author intraoperative
The tongue twister “chosakusha shujutsu-chu” (author undergoing surgery) gives off a somewhat serious vibe.
It makes you wonder what happened to the author, doesn’t it? This tongue twister is simply composed of hard-to-say words lined up in a row.
However, it’s trickier than it looks, so be careful.
In particular, the “shujutsu” part is where many people stumble.
Also, because it’s short, you keep running into the tricky spots as you repeat it, which is one reason it’s so difficult.
Tongue Twister Challenge
Prepare a tongue-twister script and challenge yourselves to see how many seconds it takes to read it! Announcers and voice actors use this as enunciation training, right? If you search for “tongue twisters,” you’ll find plenty, and you can also create your own.
Add furigana to the kanji so that even first-time readers can read it.
The person who reads it the fastest without stumbling wins! Tripping up, getting stuck, and struggling to say it will get everyone excited, and if you can say it smoothly, you’re sure to draw attention!
Consumption expenditures; Non-consumption expenditures
Let me introduce a somewhat tricky tongue twister: “consumption expenditure fee, non-consumption expenditure fee.” The words are quite similar, aren’t they? The term “consumption expenditure fee” refers to money paid in exchange for obtaining something—like food costs, rent, or entertainment expenses.
In contrast, “non-consumption expenditure fee” refers to money paid without directly getting something in return—such as social insurance premiums, health insurance, or consumption tax.
Keeping those meanings in mind, give it a try.
Once you master “consumption expenditure fee,” all you have to do is add “non-” to complete the second phrase.
You request a yo-yo as a method to prevent becoming frail.
For those who struggle with the pronunciation of “yo,” this tongue twister might be a real hurdle: “A request for a yo-yo as a way to prevent becoming feeble.” Is someone asking for a yo-yo to prevent aging? Looking at the whole tongue twister, “yo” appears six times, and “yobo” appears four times.
Fortunately, there are no small characters (ゃゅょ), so just focus on the voiced sounds and give it a try.
Try saying it with an emphasis on the “bo.” By the way, some say yo-yos are effective for brain training.
I gotta buy some KitKats.
There’s a tongue twister that plays on the KitKat product name: “Kit Kat kattokan to ikankatta noni, anta ga kattokan katta node, ikankatta kanda wa.” It’s pretty confusing, isn’t it? In simple terms, it means something like, “We were supposed to buy a Kit Kat, but you didn’t buy it in advance, so that was no good.” The phrases “katto” and “katta” keep appearing, so pay attention to those and give it a try.
In conclusion
This time we picked out some high-difficulty tongue twisters—was there anyone with such amazing articulation that they could say them all? Chances are, even native Japanese speakers can’t manage most of them.
With training for the tongue and lips, though, you can learn to say tongue twisters you couldn’t before, so give the practice a try.
In addition to this article, Rug Music has other pieces themed around tongue twisters.
Be sure to check those out, too!