Sunday, November 05, 2006

Tongue Twisters for twisted tongues?

I am currently reading Stutter by Harvard Professor Shell. He claims that tongue twisters are all always impossible for people who stutter. Is this assertion true?

I can do tongue twisters when I concentrate: How about you?

Maybe, we could even use them to improve our speech control. The secret about tongue twisters is to switch between two very similar sounding words several times within a sentence. Practising switching accurately and maintaining concentration might re-train our speech system. I practised one tongue twister 100 times and afterwards I had the impression of far greater control of my speech. As usual this is temporary, but practising every day might help.

Pls post your tongue twisters! :-)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Portuguese tongue twisters:

"A aranha arranha a jarra, a jarra arranha a aranha; nem a aranha arranha a jarra nem a jarra arranha a aranha."

"Se o Papa papasse papa / Se o Papa papasse pão / O Papa tudo papava / Seria o Papa papão."

Tom Weidig said...

I only know a German tongue twister.

Fischers Fritz fischt frische Fische. Frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritz.

Anonymous said...

Susie sells seashells on the sea shore
Seashells which she sells are seashells I'm sure

Anonymous said...

Peter Piper picked a packet of pickeled peppers

Anonymous said...

Hinter dichtem Fichtendickicht,
picken dicke Finken tüchtig.

Anonymous said...

Try these ones:

Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry.

A bitter biting bittern
Bit a better brother bittern,
And the bitter better bittern
Bit the bitter biter back.
And the bitter bittern, bitten,
By the better bitten bittern,
Said: "I'm a bitter biter bit, alack!"

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,
and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would
if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

And this one is even more difficult as it could possibly cause offence:

I am not the pheasant plucker,
I'm the pheasant plucker's mate.
I am only plucking pheasants
'cause the pheasant plucker's late.

Off to get my tongue round these!
haze

Dorothy Jones said...

Do you have any information regarding individuals with Aspergers syndrome who stutter, particularly at the end of words. (ie: checked, hecked)

Anonymous said...

I tried a few. I spoke very fast and most without stuttering. I made no mistake.

What kind of Prof. is this guy?

I assume that his opinion is empirically supported. *coughcough*