She sells seashells by the seashore, she sells seashells by the seashore...
Oh... Hi! I was just practicing some tongue twisters.
You know, those short sentences that usually don't mean anything
but that are especially hard to say!
Today's video is a fun one, but it will also be surprisingly helpful
for improving your English pronunciation.
Here's the tongue twister with the S sound and the CH sound to get us started:
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Now you try!
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If you're just beginning to learn English,
even the simplest sentences might feel like tongue twisters to you.
And that's probably because some of the sounds you're struggling with
don't even exist in your native language.
So if you practice just a few specific sounds
your pronunciation will get better and better
and speaking English will get easier and easier.
Another benefit of this exercise is that complicated sentences force you to slow down
and really think about the sounds you're making.
Actors often use tongue twisters
to warm up their mouths and lips before a show
so that they are sure to articulate and enunciate.
Like this one: "Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather."
Or this one: "A proper cup of coffee from a copper coffee pot."
Did you notice how my lips, tongue, and jaw
moved a lot more than normal when I was saying those tongue twisters?
By exaggerating certain sounds while you're learning them,
you'll end up speaking more clearly.
My advice is to choose your tongue twisters strategically,
based on your native language
and the specific English sounds that you're struggling with.
Today, I've chosen five pairs of English sounds
that learners from different language backgrounds often have a hard time with.
To show you what I mean,
I thought it would be fun to challenge my MosaLingua colleagues
to some of the toughest tongue twisters that I could come up with.
Let's see if they're up to the task!
First up is Lize, our teacher from Brazil.
Native Portuguese speakers often struggle with the English "H" sound,
since this letter is always silent in their language.
The letter "H" is sometimes silent in English, too,
but usually it's pronounced with an exhaled puff of air.
Listen carefully:
Great job! By the way, this tongue twister isn't just for Portuguese speakers.
It can also be helpful for native French, Italian or Spanish speakers.
You might have already seen some videos on our channel,
in English or in Spanish, by our teacher Mirari.
The Spanish letter "V" is pronounced more like a "B,"
so native speakers often do the same thing when they speak English.
Here's your very special tongue twister. Let's see what you've got!
Very nice!
That one is also helpful for practicing the non-rolled American "R" sound.
French and Italian speakers, in particular,
sometimes have trouble hearing and pronouncing the difference
between the English sounds /ɪ/ and /i/,
as in the words "it" and "eat."
I came up with this tongue twister for our Italian teacher, Mara.
Ready, set, go.
What do you think? Pretty good, if you ask me!
These next two sounds should be pretty easy
if you're a native Spanish speaker.
But if you speak nearly any other European or Asian language,
they will probably take some work
because they're unfamiliar sounds in your native language.
I'm challenging Magda, our German teacher, to this tongue twister.
Awesome! That also makes me hungry for some chicken soup...
And finally, speakers of some East Asian languages
have trouble with the English "L" and "R" sounds.
If that's your case, try this next tongue twister out at home.
The newest member of our team,
our Chinese teacher Yi, will show you how it's done.
Well done! By the way, you heard that, right?
The MosaLingua Mandarin app is launching very soon,
so you'll be hearing more from Yi in the future.
I hope you liked those tongue twisters!
For more practice, or to impress your English-speaking friends,
here are a few more well-known tongue twisters in English
that you might have already heard:
Tongue twisters can be an entertaining exercise for practicing new sounds
no matter what language you're learning.
So have some fun with these, and I'll see you again soon. Bye bye!
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See you next time!