[Recreation] Challenge! A roundup of tongue twisters recommended for elementary school students
Let’s all have fun and exercise our mouths!
We’ve put together some tongue twisters we definitely want elementary schoolers to try.
When you read them, you might think, “These aren’t hard at all,” but when you actually say them, you end up stumbling… Tongue twisters are such a curious kind of game!
You can compete with friends to see who can say them properly, or challenge yourself with harder ones to test your limits—there are lots of ways to play!
Even if you can’t say them smoothly at first, if you keep at it, your articulation might get better and better!
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[Rec] Challenge! A collection of tongue twisters recommended for elementary school students (41–50)
Pencils and sharpened points
There’s a tongue twister that uses expressions unique to the Nagoya dialect.
It goes: “Kondon toki wa tokin-tokin no enpitsu motte kan to kan.
Teka chanto kezutto kan to kan tte itto kan to kan.” The first thing that catches your attention is “tokin-tokin,” right? This word describes a pencil tip that’s sharpened to a fine point.
In the tongue twister, it’s basically saying, “Next time, I have to bring a pencil.
Or rather, I really need to make sure it’s properly sharpened, and I should say so too.” Because it includes unfamiliar dialect words, you could say the difficulty level is on the higher side.
Kappapapakappa
This tongue twister focuses on two different words that sound the same: kappa the yokai and kappa meaning raincoat.
It depicts a certain scene where a dad kappa is wearing a raincoat kappa, and the connecting word “papa” causes a run of repeated ‘pa’ sounds.
Structurally, it’s made up of three blocks—‘kappa,’ ‘papa,’ and ‘kappa’—so it may be easier to say if you’re mindful of the breaks.
The plosive ‘pa’ requires clear mouth movement, so putting some force into it is also an important point.
The mystery of the banana is still a mystery.
There’s a unique tongue twister that goes, “Banana no nazo wa mada nazo na no da zo.” Grammatically, it may feel a bit unnatural.
The hallmark of this tongue twister is how often the sound nazo appears—it shows up five times.
To make matters trickier, there are similar-sounding phrases like nazo and na no da zo.
Plus, na no da zo also closely resembles nazo nazo (riddle), which raises the difficulty.
To avoid getting confused, make sure you’ve got it firmly in your head before you give it a try.
Batter Runner Winner Bases-clearing
A tongue twister that, when heard, might leave you unsure what’s being said: “Batter, runner, winner, runner, bases cleared.” Seeing it written out, you can kind of picture the situation.
It’s probably during a baseball game, where runners are getting put out one after another.
Try practicing while imagining that scene.
The section in the middle—“runner, winner, runner,” with the repeating ‘sha’ and ‘sho’ sounds—will likely be the toughest part.
Start by pronouncing it slowly.
Red paper roll, blue paper roll, yellow paper roll
There’s a classic Japanese tongue twister that goes, “Aka-makigami, ao-makigami, ki-makigami” (red wrapping paper, blue wrapping paper, yellow wrapping paper).
You can probably get through the first part, but the latter part around “ki-makigami” tends to be tricky.
The repeated “ki” in a short span makes your tongue trip up.
If you consciously separate the color and the word “makigami,” as in “aka | makigami,” it should come out more smoothly.
Incidentally, it’s said that the three colors in this tongue twister refer to a red ogre, a blue ogre, and a yellow ogre, and that chanting the tongue twister can drive them away.