Hi everyone, I hope you're ready to have some fun today because we're going to practice
pronunciation with some tongue twisters. A tongue twister is a phrase or a sentence that includes a
combination of difficult sounds, and often these are difficult because there are many of the same
sound together, and we practice tongue twisters by usually trying to say the sentence quickly.
Practicing tongue twisters can be helpful for English learners because the combination of sounds
can help you to do two things: one is that it can help you to practice sounds that are hard for you,
and when you say a sound over and over again, it can help you to pronounce it more correctly.
Another reason is that tongue twisters are kind of like exercise for your brain and your
mouth. When you say a difficult sentence or a phrase over and over again, you practice that
connection between your brain and your mouth that helps you to control your pronunciation,
so when you say a tongue twister and there are hard sounds, your brain has to communicate with
the muscles in your mouth and your tongue to help you to say the sounds clearly and correctly, and
that kind of practice is helpful because it trains you to control your pronunciation so that when
you're having a conversation you can use that same skill to help you speak more clearly or to improve
your pronunciation, so even though tongue twisters can be kind of silly and they often are confusing
in their meaning, they are useful for improving pronunciation. And finally, they are also helpful
for practicing other pronunciation points like linking word stress and sentence stress. Before
we get started with those tongue twisters, I want to ask you to please give this video a Like and
subscribe if you enjoy this video, and remember that i'm always here for you, so if you have
questions, please let me know in the comments below. I want to talk just very quickly about
sentence stress because tongue twisters have a lot of sentence stress that you can practice,
so in English we have two kinds of words, we have content and function words, and we use a rhythm
of stressing these words differently to create that sound of English that goes up and down, so
content words are the more important words in the sentence like nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs, and those are the words that we say more strongly when we're speaking, and then we have
function words, function words are small words that help to make the grammar of the sentence
like articles like a, an, and the, or prepositions like of and in, and helping verbs like do or is,
and these words are usually not stressed and, so you'll notice that English has that kind of
sing-song rhythm of stress on some words and other words are fast, and that helps us to make that
sound that we like in English, so when you hear a tongue twister that has rhythm like that,
you're going to want to think about why the stress is on certain words and then try to practice that
tongue twister with the same rhythm, and that will help you to improve your rhythm or sentence stress
in English. So let's get to those tongue twisters. Number one: Sally sells seashells by the seashore.
this one's actually hard for me too, I have to say it slowly. Sally sells seashells by the seashore,
so this tongue twister is good for practicing the s and the sh sounds and z sound, and this is great
for speakers of Vietnamese and Chinese and even Spanish and probably some other languages that
have difficulty with those sounds in English. You should also note the stress of the words seashells
and seashore, those are what are called compound nouns, and compound nouns are nouns that are made
up of two words together, and we have stress on the first one like seashore and seashells,
like classroom and homework, so let's say it again: Sally sells seashells by the seashore.
Sally sells seashells by the seashore. Number two: Red lorry yellow lorry, so this is a short tongue
twister and for short tongue twisters you're going to want to say it over and over maybe three times
in a row: red lorry yellow lorry, red lorry yellow lorry, red lorry yellow lorry. Lorry is
actually the British word for truck, so this is not a word that we use in American English, but
this is a great tongue twister for anybody who has problems with the r and the l sound. Number three:
A big black bear sat on a big black rug, so I love this tongue twister because this is a great one
for practicing that rhythm that I was talking about because you're going to want to stress
the nouns and adjectives and the main verb and then those small words on a you're gonna say
very quickly, and you're hardly gonna even hear them: A big black bear sat on a big black rug.
this is also good for practicing b, l, r and the vowel i like in big and a as in black.
A big black bear sat on a big black rug. Number four: Which wristwatches
are Swiss wristwatches? So this is a hard one for me too but this is a great tongue twister just for
getting your mouth muscles um warmed up, it's a great combination of tricky sounds all together.
Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches? Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches? Number five:
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
So this is probably the most famous tongue twister in the United States and it's a good
one for practicing stress again and also for practicing the sound sh sound and the sound
oo which is the sound in would also in the sound foot and book it sounds like oo, so it's not uw
it's oo. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? How much wood
would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Number six: Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy was he? so this is a great tongue twister
for practicing z sound and so this would be great for Spanish speakers Chinese speakers and notice
that the z sound is not only in the z letters, it's also with the s at the end of the word was
and notice the way that was links with the next word Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, was a was a bear
was a. We don't stop between was a, we say was a was a bear, and also notice that last tag question
was he was he we don't say was he, we say was + ee. Do you know the rule for that one?
So the pronouns he, her, him, and his in English, when we're speaking quickly, we actually drop that
h, and the word before will link to it, for example Have you seen him? seen him, That's
Have you seen him? or I love + er. What is lov+ er? I love her, so notice that last tag question
Was he? Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?
Number seven: Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter pick?
So this is a good tongue twister to practice the
sound in English, especially at the beginning of a word like pickled, and this is great for
speakers of Arabic and Vietnamese, notice with the sound p in English that it has that blast of
air that is different from how p is in many other languages, so when you say p, you're going to want
to put your hand in front of your mouth and notice if you can feel the air on your hand
there should be a strong blast of air that comes out with p in English, and you can hear it too:
pickled, Peter, right Peter, it's not Peter, it's Peter. Another thing with this tongue twister is
the sentence stress, so those small words are going to be very fast and hard to hear:
Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, so again the word a and of, you almost can't hear it.
Okay let's try it one more time: Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
How many pickled peppers did Peter pick? Number eight: I scream, you scream,
we all scream for ice cream! This is a great tongue twister for practicing consonant clusters.
Consonant clusters are groups of consonants that come together, and here we have s, c, and r, sk
so we have three sounds together: scream scream, and this is also a good one for
people who have a hard time pronouncing the m clearly at the end of words. I'm looking at you
Portuguese speakers, so I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. Number nine: Six sticky skeletons.
Six sticky skeletons. This is a great one for practicing consonants and consonant clusters,
the x sound in x and sk in skeletons it's great. Six sticky skeletons. Number ten:
Any noise a noise an oyster, but a noisy noise annoys an oyster most. This is a great tongue
twister for practicing sentence stress, and you'll notice that those small words like and and but
are not going to be pronounced very clearly and the other words are going to be stronger:
Any noise a noise an oyster, but a noisy noise annoys an oyster most.
Also this is great for the vowel oy which is the same sound in boy. We have the vowel o in most,
which is the same vowel in boat, o most, and the vowel e as in any which is the same vowel in bed.
This is a great tongue twister for the z sound because we have that sound in several of these
words noise and annoys. Number 11: Betty Botter bought some butter but the butter was bitter,
so Betty Botter bought some better butter to make the bitter butter better. So this is a pretty long
tongue twister that's great for practicing the flapped t sound in English, so notice that the t
in the middle of those words changes to like a fast d sound in the words better,
Betty, butter, and butter. This is the same thing that happens in the word later in English.
Also we have a few vowels here like e in Betty, that's the same vowel in bed, and we have
a in bot and we have the schwa sound in butter which is the same vowel in but, butter.
Finally you can practice sentence stress with this one and of course the sound in b.
That sound is not difficult for most people, but if your native language is Spanish,
you're going to want to make sure that you're saying a clear Betty, not Betty, but a clear
force between those two lips. Finally the last three tongue twisters practice the th sounds,
and remember that the th sounds in English can be voiced or voiceless
voiced voiceless, so the first one is going to practice the voiced th sound: Whether the
weather is cold, whether the weather is hot, we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather. Here we
have the voiced th in the middle of words like weather: Whether the weather is cold,
whether the weather is hot, we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather. And of course
that's also a good tongue twister to practice the e sound which is the vowel in bed and to practice
and the voiceless th sound. Aunt Beth has thick cheeks, thin lips, three teeth, and a thin mouth.
Aunt Beth has thick cheeks, thin lips, three teeth,
and a thin mouth. Aunt Beth has thick cheeks, thin lips, three teeth, and a thin mouth.
Three thin panthers in the bathroom. Well, that's just a silly tongue twister,
but it's great for practicing the th sound: Three thin panthers in the bathroom.
Three thin panthers in the bathroom. Finally my advice for you is to find a few of these tongue
twisters that you think are the most helpful for you, write them down on a piece of paper,
and put it somewhere where you can see it every day like on your bathroom mirror or
on your refrigerator, and practice saying them every day just for a couple of minutes.
That kind of daily practice can really help you to keep your muscle movements warmed up for English,
it can help you to learn how to control your pronunciation,
and I know from my own language learning experience that that kind of daily practice
really can be helpful. Which tongue twister is the most difficult for you? Let me know in
the comments below. As always, thank you so much for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
Bye!