Saturday, February 9, 2008

Say "Parangacutirimicuaro" 3 times fast!!!....and more tongue twister mania

Everybody loves a tongue twister, am I right? There are lots of place names that are ridiculously hard to pronounce here in Mexico.
As far as I can tell, the entire Nahuatl language (language of the Aztecs, still spoken by about 1.5 million people) is a tongue twister. Popocatépetl? Iztaccíhuatl? Atzcapotzalco? And everyone´s favorite: Parangacutirimicuaro, which is actually a Purépecha municipio in Michoacan apparently, so we won't blame the Aztec conquistadores for that one.
Here´s some more "trabalenguas," courtesy of my friend, Ana and http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/es.htm:

Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal.

"R" con "R" cigarro
"R" con "R" barril
Rápido corren los carros que lleva el ferrocarril.
*No cheating! You have to roll the double "R"!

Otorrinolaringólogo trabaja en la otorrinolaringología.

La pícara pájara pica la típica jícara; a la típica jícara, pica la pícara pájara.

Los hombres con hambre hombre, abren sus hombros hombrunos sin dejar de ser hombres con hambre hombre hombruno. Si tú eres un hombre con hambre hombre hombruno, pues dí que eres un hombre com hambre y no cualquier hombre hombruno sino un hombre con hombros muy hombre, hombre.

Cuando cuentes cuentos, cuenta cuantos cuentos cuentas, cuando cuentes cuentos.

Hay chicas chachareras que chacotean con chicos chazos. Y un chico mete al chillón de la chepa un chichón por chirrichote, y el chiste, y lo chocante, es que la chepa se le ha chafado con la hinchazón del chirlo.

Now, just to be fair, I´m going to have to challenge my Mexican friends to bust out these classic English tongue twisters, not that I can even stutter them out myself:

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?

How much wood could Chuck Woods' woodchuck chuck, if Chuck Woods' woodchuck could and would chuck wood? If Chuck Woods' woodchuck could and would chuck wood, how much wood could and would Chuck Woods' woodchuck chuck? Chuck Woods' woodchuck would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much wood as any woodchuck would, if a woodchuck could and would chuck wood.

Betty bought some butter,but the butter Betty bought was bitter,so Betty bought some better butter,and the better butter Betty boughtwas better than the bitter butter Betty bought before!

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