Tongue twisters are not only entertaining, but they also develop verbal skills in children. You can learn traditional tongue twisters or make up some of your own.

A tongue twister is a sentence, phrase or group of words that is difficult to articulate quickly or clearly. It usually involves alliteration or a series of similar sounds. To successfully execute a tongue twister, it is necessary to repeat it several times as quickly as possible without making any errors or stumbling over any words or sounds.

In addition to being generally amusing and entertaining, particularly for children, tongue twisters also develop pronunciation skills and language awareness. For children struggling with particular sound combinations, tongue twisters can be a fun way to practise the troublesome sounds.

Story Tongue Twisters

The most memorable tongue twisters generally involve some kind of story or description. The following have been circulating for many years:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said, "This butter's bitter! But a bit of better butter will but make my batter better." So she bought some better butter, better than the bitter butter, and it made her batter better so 'twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter!

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

Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously; for nobody's toeses are posies of roses, as Moses supposes his toeses to be.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

I want a proper cup of coffee from a proper copper coffee pot.

If two witches were watching two watches, which witch would watch which watch?

The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.

Great Grace eats great grapes.

Troublesome words

Some combinations of words are tricky to repeat quickly. Try to repeat the following five times quickly:

• Toy boat
• Soldiers’ shoulders
• Cricket critic
• Unique New York
• Red lolly, yellow lorry
• Red leather, yellow letter
• Red leather, yellow leather, lavender leather
• Real weird right rear wheel
• Sushi

Make your own Tongue Twister

To make your own tongue twister, either adapt a familiar one such as Peter Piper or gather together a list of words that use similar consonant combinations and/or starting with the same letters or sounds then make up a phrase or story. Challenge children to come up with a twister that older family members won’t be able to repeat.

Tongue Twister Game

Choose a tongue twister, longer ones work better, and get each player to repeat it as quickly as possible. A point added for each hesitation or error. The person with the lowest score wins.

Tongue Twister Books

Many joke books and children’s puzzle books will contain a few tongue twisters. The best collection can be found in Dr Seuss’ Fox in Socks (Collins, 1965) - guaranteed to gets adults and children laughing together as they try to successfully read aloud the many twisters including one about the 'muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle’.