Tongue twisters in a foreign language are always a very funny and effective way to improve one’s pronunciation. Since Chinese is a tonal language, this adds another difficulty to the tongue twisters, because they also play around with in the tones while pronunciation eventually stays the same. Here is a popular and quite difficult example:

四是四
十是十
十四是十四
四十是四十
四十四是四十四
四十四只石狮子是死的

sì shì sì
shí shì shí
shí sì shì shí sì
sì shí shì sì shí
sì shí sì shì sì shí sì
sì shí sì zhī shí shī zi shì sǐ de

Four is four
ten is ten
fourteen is fourteen
forty is forty
forty four is forty four
forty four lions are dead

Another one that I already heard when I was little:

吃葡萄不吐葡萄皮，
不吃葡萄倒吐葡萄皮

chī pú táo bù tǔ pú táo pí,
bù chī pú táo dǎo tǔ pú táo pí.

When eating grapes, don’t spit out the grape skins.
When not eating grapes, do spit out the grape skins

That is a quite popular tongue twister, but I bet you don’t know this variant. Thanks here to the 春 who taught me this one on a long boring train trip:

磕瓜子不吐瓜子皮，
不磕瓜子倒吐瓜子皮

kē guā zǐ bù tǔ guā zǐ pí,
bù kē guā zǐ dǎo tǔ guā zǐ pí.

When eating seeds, don’t spit out the seed shell.
When not eating seeds, do spit out the seed shell.

Now let’s go for a longer one:

扁担长，板凳宽，
板凳没有扁担长，
扁担没有板凳宽，
扁担绑在板凳上,
板凳不让扁担绑在板凳上，
扁担非要扁担绑在板凳上。

biǎn dān cháng，bǎn dèng kuān,
bǎn dèng méi yǒu biǎn dān cháng,
biǎn dān méi yǒu bǎn dèng kuān,
biǎn dān bǎng zài bǎn dèng shàng,
bǎn dèng bù ràng biǎn dān bǎng zài bǎn dèng shàng,
biǎn dān fēi yào biǎn dān bǎng zài bǎn dèng shàng.

The shoulder pole is long, the bench is broad,
the bench is not longer than the shoulder pole,
the shoulder pole is not broader than the bench,
the shoulder pole is tied atop the bench,
the bench doesn’t allow the shoulder pole to be tied atop the bench.
the shoulder pole simply must be tied atop the bench.

Well, those are I learned when I was a kid. But I found another funny one on the internet:

梨和泥
树上有梨，
地上有泥，
风刮梨，
梨落地，
梨滚泥，
泥沾梨。

lí hé ní
shù shàng yǒu lí,
dì shàng yǒu ní,
fēng guā lí,
lí luò dì,
lí gǔn ní,
ní zhān lí.

The Pear and the mud
Atop the tree, there is a pear,
atop the ground, there is mud,
the wind knocks off the pear,
the pear falls to the ground,
the pears rolls on the mud,
the mud sticks to the pear.

Now that is enough tongue twisting for today. Good luck practicing them! Unfortunately my microphone doesn’t work yet, but I hope I will be able to create a podcast in the future!

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