Hello everyone,
day 4 of our advent calendar and today it’s time for some fun. Get ready for….
German tongue twisters
I’ll give you a selection of tongue twisters that I personally find difficult. And yes, I’m gonna read them to you, first slow, then fast. And I won’t edit. So you can hear me fail :)
The German word for tongue twister is Zungenbrecher, by the way. So they don’t just twist your tongue, they apperantly break it.
So let’s see, if they’re really that bad.
And the first one can ONLY be this (the first audio is slow, the second as fast as I can)
- Fischers Fritze fischt frische Fische.
Frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritze.
Yeah, that sounds very German now, doesn’t it :). All those sh and ts.
This tongue twister is probably the most famous one even though it’s not the most difficult one. I mean… you just heard me. I totally aced it. What is it about? Well, it tells us about “the Fritz of Fisher” and how he’s fishing fresh fish. And please don’t ask me what Fritz is in this context; maybe the son of the fisher is called Fritz. I don’t know.
I wouldn’t think too much about the message of tongue twisters anyway. And the one with the fish is way more meaningful than the one coming up next, which is about making wax masks from wax mask wax.
Duh.
- Wenn du Wachsmasken magst – Max macht Wachsmasken aus Wachsmaskenwachs.
It’s actually very similar in English, so it might qualify
- If you like wax masks – Max makes wax-masks from wax-mask-wax.
This one is by far less known than the first one, but I find it quite tricky. It definitely take some training to get it right.
Not as much as the last one though, which is also called “Students’ reckoning.”
Behold:
- Ein Chinesischer Chirurg schenkt Tschechischen Chemikern niedliche Teeschälchen.
Niedliche Teeschälchen schenkt ein chinescher Chirurg tschechischen Chemikern - A Chinese surgeon is giving cute little tea bowls to Czech chemists.
Cute little tea bowls a Chinese surgeon is giving to Czech chemists.
Not bad, huh.
And you know what the best thing is? It’s not even that hard for a German. Well… at least when they’re a bit sloppy about the ch. But I’m sure it is an absolute nightmare for students that have issues with ch.
So, that’s it for today. We’ll do a second part soon and there, I’ll show you the ones that are really hard for me, personally. So please don’t spoil any German tongue twisters in the comments yet.
But let me know what you think of the ones we had? Were they difficult for you? Which one’s the hardest? And what are some cool ones in your language? Let me know in the comments below, and enter the competition for today’s little giveaway (which I still haven’t decided what it’s gonna be)
Have a great day and bis morgen!
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
I liked the last one, once I did it a few times I think I got the hang of it… maybe XD I absolutely love tongue twisters, my favourite one is a Japanese tongue twister about a girl called Momo and Peaches (also called Momo). I can’t remember exactly how it goes, because I’ve always got it wrong, but a few of my friends do it every now and then to show off.
I get this one wrong all the time too, it is the one English tongue twister that I just seem to fail at every time XD
She sells sea shells by the sea shore. It is really hard to not ‘sh’ every ‘s’.
Der der sechsten Kranken ist wirklich schrecklich.
Was ist seine wahre Bedeutung?
“Die sechste Krankheit der Schafe des sechsten kranken Scheichs”?
Übrigens, diese ist auf Italienisch und sehr berühmt:
“Sopra la panca la capra campa,
sotto la panca la capra crepa”
meaning: auf der Bank lebt die Ziege, unter der Bank die Ziege stirbt.
Oh cool, den mit den Scheichs kannte ich noch nicht. Die Bedeutung:
– The sixth sickness of the sick sixth sheik’s sheep.
And the English version is really hard for me, too.
Makes no sense, but one of my favorites is “The sea ceaseth, but it sufficeth us”.
And also… The hardest English tongue twister for me is “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick”. I can’t even say “sixth” properly xD
Wow, that one is horrific :D!!!
Alle sind schwer für mich xD Ich denke, dass meine “ch” sehr stark sind…
Es gibt einige schwere Zungenbrecher (“trabalenguas”) im Spanischen:
1) El volcán de Parangaricutirimícuaro se quiere desparangaricutiriguarizar, y el que lo desparangaricutiricuarizare será un buen desparangaricutirimizador.
(It’s about a volcano in Mexico, and it basically says that this volcano doesn’t want to be a volcano anymore, so whoever makes it possible would be a good “desvolcanizer”. Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense :D)
2) “Erre” con “erre” cigarro,
“erre” con “erre” barril.
Rápido corren los carros,
Cargados de azúcar del ferrocarril.
(It’s about a cigar, a barrel, some fast cars and a sugar railroad. Even though it’s a little silly, it may be a nightmare for someone who can’t pronounce the rolled “r”)
Oh my god, the volcano one just gave me a taste of what it’s like to read long words that you DON’T know. Not fun at all :)
Too fun! I became acquainted with ‘shoulder surgery’ last month (for my son, not me!!) and the more we discussed it, the harder it was to say. :D
Oh, I can see that. We should build one on that… like
– The shoulder surgeon should search and shoulder the boulder.
or
– An increase in injured shoulders leads to a surge in shoulder surgeons.
I’ve always liked:
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pecks of pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
A pretty hard Hungarian one:
A szerencsés csősz cserszömörcés sört szürcsöl.
The lucky hayward is sipping beer made of smoke tree.
Wow, I have no idea how to say that but it’s already kind of an eye breaker.
A little naughty, but:
I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son,
But I’ll be plucking pheasants ’till the pheasant plucking’s done.
Hahahahahaha… my inner 13 year old self is delighted.
Are we not pronouncing at all the L in Teeschälchen?
Good question… to my perception it’s there but my brain definitely fills in a lot. It’s barely audible, I cannot deny that.
My favorite English tongue twister is the classic :
Betty Botter bought some butter
But she said the butter’s bitter.
If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better batter, that will make my batter better.
And my favorite Italian scioglilingue (tongue melters)
Trentatré Trentini entrarono a Trento, tutti e trentatré, trotterellando.
33 people from Trento, entering Trento, all 33 were trotting.
Apelle, figlio d’Apollo, fece una palla di pelle di pollo.
Tutti i pesci vennero a galla per vedere la palla di pelle di pollo,
fatta d’Apelle, figlio di Apollo.
Apelle, son of Apollo made a ball of chicken skin. All of the fish came to see the ball of chicken skin made by Apelle, son of Apollo.
I know the two Italian ones from a friend of mine. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t find Italian ones to be very difficult. I think Italian is just too harmonic and pretty for that. I’ve heard some Polish ones a few years ago and oh boy… those are super-difficult.
That’s also my favorite English tongue twister!
I agree with evabara about the wax masks in English. One that is well known in English is, How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? It does not get tough until you repeat it several times. Also, she sells seas shells down by the shining sea shore. Tough for kids with braces on their teeth!
The wood-chuck one was the first English tongue twister I ever heard and I remember how I was like… “That’s kinda lame.” :D. Compared to some German ones that really give me a hard time (I’ll disclose those in part 2)
Say them each three times, real fast:
1. Smart fellow I fellow smart.
2. She slit the sheet the sheet she slit upon the slitted sheet she sits.
The second one is really tough for me :)
Here is a Turkish tongue twister:
Bu yoğurdu sarımsaklasak da mı saklasak sarımsaklamasak da mı saklasak?
Meaning: Shall we keep this yogurt after “garlicing” it or shall we keep it without “garlicing”?
Hah.. nice one :). The deep questions of life.
I find the english version of the wax masks one even harder than the german one (and I’m a native english speaker)… Haha thank you for this fun bit of frustration on a Sunday morning :D
Isn’t “Fischers Fritze” just the fisherman Fritz? I always read it as such. Like “Kaufmann Karl” gets “Kaufmanns Karle” in this antiquated kind of nickname style. Not that one would ask about sense in tounge breaker, I mean, who cares what sparrows do in bushes?
…or goats with sugar?
I know the goat one:
Zehn Ziegen ziehen 10 Zentner Zucker zum Zug.
but what’s the one about sparrows?
On a side note… all sites about tongue breakers list these alliteration based sentences.They’re creative no doubt but they’re not that tongue breaking, I think.
“Zwischen zwei Zwetschgenzweigen sitzen zwei zechenschwarze tschechisch zwitschernde Schwalben.”
As I look it up, it is swallow in English. But to my defense ornithology is not my strength.
You’re probably right but ever since I was a child I thought “Fischer” and “Fritz” are two different entities :).
I’ve always taken “Fischers Fritz” to mean Fritz [of the family] Fischer. In Parts of England (the North, at least) it used to be quite common for “Browns’ Tom,” for example, to be used instead of Tom Brown, or “Wilsons’ Harold” for Harold Wilson when talking of a member of the community. I just thought that this was the same usage in German.
Also, I recall it as “Fischers Fritz frißt frische Fische.” Quite a different mental image, but it seems to me to make more sense.
In South Australia, we had huge German settlement in 1840-1880, so we have a few funny names for things. We have a meat product called Fritz , its a very even textured, ready to eat, pink stuff, similar to Mortadella without the white spots. Now if a stick of that could go fishing…. The best fritz is produced by butchers and is a bit bent with an orange skin and is known as Bung Fritz..
I think the German version is called Lyoner (like the French city). At least the images on image search look very similar. And I saw there’s also Bung Fritz with faces. That’s commonly called “Bärchenwurst”… just awful!
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