Spurry's Japanese Tongue Twisters

A list of tongue twisters I have written while studying Japanese

日本語を勉強している間に書いた早口言葉のリスト
The Japanese language has less sounds than English and therefore different words tend to sound the same to us. As a result, there is more scope for inventing tongue twisters. I created these tongue twisters, for fun, while learning. I've had them checked by a native Japanese speaker, so they shouldn't be too awful.

I only like tongue twisters that actually make sense. It always bugs me when tongue twisters join words together to achieve maximum twist - while sacrificing substance. I don't mind stretching the boundaries a little, of course. Here are my tongue twisters, with accompanying pictures for quick identification.

Frog and Kangaroo カエリさんが買えるカンガルーの蛙の考えを変える

By nature of the differences between English and Japanese (in this case the comparitively clumsy way English shows possession) - this is really difficult to translate:

Kaeri's Kangaroo, the one she is able to buy, that kangaroo's frog changed its mind.

Naturally enough, the translation loses everything and is hardly worth mentioning. This is also a play on synonyms in Japanese where the word pronounced kaeru 「かえる」 can sound like several words (in this case to buy (potential form), frog, and to change). Also the word kangaroo sounds a lot like kangaeru 「かんがえる」 - which is the verb for to think. Fortunately, because of the system of using Kanji characters, all of these are written totally differently and there's really no confusion when reading it.

Marshmallows

娘の昔のママのマシュマロにマロンを入れて丸める

Put your daughter's old mother's marshmallow in the melon and roll it up

This one is almost a tongue twister in English as well. Once again here, we have a lot of possessive going on (daughter's mother's marshmellow) which, in Japanese, doesn't seem to be as awkward as it is in English.

Composing 京子の今日の交響曲は東京の公共の峡谷で教科書に作曲した

The symphony that Kyoko wrote today, was composed in a textbook at Tokyo public park canyon

This is a play on many similar words sounding like 'kyo' 「きょ」 - such as the name Kyoko. The fact that the word for 'symphony' is practically a tongue twister in itself, really helps - kou-kyou-kyoku 「こうきょうきょく」


by Peter van der Woude
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URL: www.jlptstudy.com/general/JapaneseTongueTwisters.html
Updated: 13/Jul/2006