OK here. You all think that your English is fluent and perfect ?

Follow this three simple steps to ruin your tongue :bleh: :


(for beginners)
Three witches watch three swatch watches. Which witch watches
which swatch watch?

(advanced english)
Three switched witches watch three Swatch watch
switches. Which switched witch watches which Swatch watch switch?

(at the end)
Three swiss witch-bitches, which wished to be switched swiss witch-bitches, wish
to watch three swiss Swatch watch switches. Which swiss witch-bitch which wishes
to be a switched swiss witch-bitch, wishes to watch which swiss Swatch watch
switch?

And when you're not English, then try to translate the third sentence in your language.

This is the German version: (much easier to say)
Drei Schweizer Hexen-Schlampen, die sich wünschen geschlechtsumgewandelt zu sein, schauen sich schweizer Swatch Uhrenknöpfe an. Welche schweizer Hexen-Schlampe, die sich wünscht geschlechtsumgewandelt zu sein,schaut sich welche schweizer Swatch Uhrenknöpfe an?

And what's the problem there?
Just think it's the lyrics to some old techno rapping (like with 2 unlimited, Culture Beat, Scatman John,...). It's actually quite rhytmic. This would be much harder to pronounce:

Toy boat. Toy boat. Toy boat. (and it keeps on repeating).

you're supposed to prononuce it very fast (it's an exercise, that helps one develop his speaking)

We have stuff like that in Portuguese, too. Like trying to say ''tr?s tristes tigres'' (''three sad tigers'').

Spanish version is "Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal". :D

well, since we're posting our native ones:
"черепаха, не скучая, час сидит за чашкой чая"

ermmm yeah .. whatever. :crazy:

what does it mean ?

--

and Sebatianos please do me a favour and record it and post it here. I would really like to know how easy (?) that would be for a native speaker. I can read that but I must concentrate a bit. Simply the "TH" is something that needs a bit of concentration when having so much "s" and "ch" in the sentence when not being used to it in your native language ...

any questions?
(If it's translation you want, then it means "the turtle can drink a single cup of tea for hours without getting bored", silly isn't it?

The italian version is "Tre tigri contro tre tigri" or, closer to your version, "Tre tristi tigri"

Well I'm not a native speaker of English - but I'll give it a go. In the mean time here's a little Slovene sentance:
Pešec gre čez cestišče v Stožce po rožce. :D

Okay, here it goes in hungarian: "Három szomorú tigris"
Not bad at all :)

We have some similar tounge twisters too, like
"Bedezodorozott luxus Moszkvics slusszkulcs" I still can't pronounce it in one go :D The "s" is my nightmare...
It means "Deoranted luxury Moskwich igniton-key" Sounds stupid isn't it? We invented this with my friends :D

The next one with "r" twisting: "Répa, retek, mogyoró. Korán reggel ritkán rikkant a rigó" it means "Carrot, radish, peanut. Early in the morning the throstle rarely twitters" This is a folk invented one :D

Shouldn't it be "Three swiss witch-bitches who wished to be switched swiss witch-bitches", though?:P

I would translated in greek if I had any idea what switched swiss witch-bitches meant. I can understand swiss witch bitch, but what is a switched swiss witch bitch? Switched in what way? Sex change?

There are two sentences thare used in greek but they are more used as jokes than anything else. One is " μια πάπια με παπιά μα "muck, I can't remember how it goes. So many years ago, I can't remember them. :cry:

That's not a good test.
It's far too easy.

the tch and th sounds are very basic in a person's vocabulary.
I myself use the "Woodchuck" and "Seashells" tongue twisters, being the most difficult to complete succesfully (The entire thing)

Well here's what I came up with tonight (with a few hours practice I'd be much better, but I'm too sleepy right now).

Witches

EDIT - I think the seashells are really difficoult - woodchuck isn't that hard...

Try this:
She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
The shells she sells are surely seashells.
So if she sells shells on the seashore,
I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

Yah it is.
Reason Woodchuck is hard is that the complete version goes on forever.
You're bound to mess up somewhere.

Anyone notice the topic name is "Do your think you can speak english?"

at least it makes sense.
seashells is easy.
try:
Red lorry Yellow lorry (repeat ad infinitum)

Pfft you should check the Dr Seuss tongue-twister book. That's hard.

yeah it is.

Red Leather Yellow Leather is hard too.

I learned the trick to doing "toy boat" this summer, so now it's pretty easy.

?ríbrotin blý-kringla, ?ríbrotin blý-kringla *repeat*

Stebbi stó? á ströndu
var a? tro?a strý
strý var ekki tro?i? fyrr en stebbi tr??i strý.

Hno?ri úr nor?ri ver?ur a? ve?ri ?ó a? sí?ar ver?i.

Rómverskur riddari ré?st inn í rómarborg r?ndi og rupla?i rabbarbara og rófum.

Sea-shells are quite easy, in my opinion..

I'm not even trying that. I already have too big an accent as it is. Try asking "I'll be back" Van Damme to do that. You'd still get a better result than from me <_<

I like rubber baby buggy bumpers :D

Yea, I was planning on bringing that one to light... heh.. ironic.

Hmm I don't have any trouble pronouncing the seashell thingy, maybe it depends of where you come from. For example, a lot of foreigners coming to the Netherlands just can't pronounce the way we say things like Scheveningen, heggenschaar, and other things with a 'hard' g, but to us it's easy.

Furthermore we've got this one
"De knappe kapper kapt knap, maar de knecht van de knappe kapper kapt knapper dan dat de knappe kapper kappen kan"

It means.. umm "The handsome barber cuts well, but the assistant of the handsome barber cuts better than that the handsome barber can cut"

(actually I think the word handsome should be skilled, 'knap' can be used for handsome or skilled.. but it doesn't make any sense in english anyway :) )


something similair: "De kat krabt de krullen van de trap" I never found this one that hard, but it has been often used. It means "The cat scratches the 'krullen' of the stairs"

Hmm I don't know how to translate 'krullen'.

This is a clssic in Swedish.

Sju sjösjuka sjömen p? det sjunkande sjöskeppet Shanghai
or
Sex laxar i en laskask *repeat*

the would translate into:
Seven sea sick seamen on the sinking seaship Shanghai (not so hard in English, but the swedish "sj" makes it easy to get lost).

Six salmons in a box (lask is a box paper that has a plastic surface, I don't know any english reference)

BTW. seashells are quite easy for sweds if you talk a bit of phony brittish (use a very small area in the front of your mount, in difference to the normally used wide area in the front of the mouth when talking english (wich would make to "sh"'s unbearable.


///MJ

Excelent point! Every language has various typical sounds that poeple are used to. Those sounds aren't a problem.

As an English teacher I can tell that most Slovene children usually have problems with the differentce between long and short [i] - like in beach vs. bitch...

I know what one ^_^ my mother can do it :P
it also works incredibly well in english too.

Here's another hungarian one:
"Mit sütsz kis szűcs? Tán sós húst sütsz, kis szűcs?"

and it means approx. (my english is not so good, so fellow hungarians please help me out with this one :) ) "What are you roasting little furrier? Is it salted meat perhaps what you're roasting little furrier?"

This one is a notorius tongue-twister, because of the 's'-s and 'sz'-s being so close to the 't'-s and each other. It can be tough :D. ( I'm not familar with teaching hungarian as a foreign language but 's' is like the 'sh' in the english word 'shoot', and 'sz' is pronunciated like the 's' in the word 'see'. 'T' is 't' :) )

Wax paper? Lamanate cardboard?

Yeah, I like the sea bitches better than sea shore beaches LOL

I can speak English quite well, but I cannot gibber on for ages on simple repitition...

ooo someone should put finnish one here ...cos i only know this one " vesi hiisi sihisi hississä" its really easy to say and no i dont know what it is in english LOL

:ok: Wow, I bet that even sounds better with a beat and some musical tunes!! Could be the next hitsingle this autumn!! :P But still, well spoken, i couldn't do it... :bleh:

ehm.... wasn't it 'Aaaahnold' Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator who said: 'I'll be back' ? :) or am I missing something here.... :tomato:

Ha! That was easy.

Damn that's good. Didn't expect it.


--

I think the Woodchuck is terribly easy but I had some problems woth the seashell at the beginning.

Here are two German ones that are quite hard if you repeat 'em 10 times ...

- Die Katze tritt die Treppe krumm.
(The cat uses the stairs and bends 'em)

- Querkrawatte
(askew-tie)

:tnx:

This has nothing to do with knowing a language. I know several professors of linguistics who couldn't manage these tongue twisters. This kind of thing is only about "osculatory agility," and a damn sight less fun than being an effective kisser, too. :ok:

Fair enough. But failing miserably at pronouncing toungue-twisters is also a whole lot less embarassing... :whistle:

And if you're good at both? :angel: :whistle: :tomato:

:w00t: Another Hungarian????? HERE? :Brain:

I though I'm the only one. (duh!)
Okay, so my novelty is over ^_^

"Mit sütsz kis szűcs? Talán sós húst sütsz kis szűcs?"

Well, I'll be damned if I didn't thought about that. I was gonna post that right here when I saw somebody already done it :blink:

The translation is pretty much the same (good work :ok: )

@piroklasztit

Te magyar vagy? Vagy csak szedted valahonnan ezt a nyelvtörőt? Tényleg abba voltam, hogy én vagyok az egyetlen :D

That's easy for you to say!

Are you sure? Remember in Hungarian s is pronounced as "sh" and sz is pronounced as "s". Also those ü and ű sounds are very difficoult to destingiush...

Not that difficult really. ü is short and ű is long. Okay, I know its easy for me to say... :P We got some rather strage letters in our ABC. Like "dzs" (yes, its ONE letter actually) which is "g" or rather "j" in english.

I'm impressed how many people are good at hungarian here, like Seb... :D And I thought hungarian is a difficult language :D

I'm 100% hungarian Playbahnosh! (szóval nem csak úgy szedtem a dolgokat ;) ). Sorry for the late answer, and thanks for the greetings :kosta: . Hungarian IS a really hard language for the foregneirs, because it has a lot of exceptions in it's grammar, and english or german speakers usually find that the vocals are difficult to pronounce correctly (I don't want to offend anyone :), every language has it's tricks ;) ).

I'm english and I can't say any tounge-twisters, when I do I get a stupid accent :tai:

Wax paper? Lamanate cardboard?

Yeah, I like the sea bitches better than sea shore beaches LOL

I can speak English quite well, but I cannot gibber on for ages on simple repitition... [/b][/quote]
Waxpaper would come close, it's used in boxes that has a liquid in it, like a milkbox.


///MJ

Ah, one of those Tetra Pak thingies, you mean?