Certainly, you may have heard of tongue twisters, and if you’re practicing Spanish, you’ve likely encountered some of them. Have you noticed the difficulty in pronouncing them? Don’t worry; that’s their purpose. This is a good exercise to improve your pronunciation when practicing Spanish.
Tongue twisters are sentences or texts designed to enhance pronunciation by combining similar sounds. They are very useful for developing agile and clear diction. Most learners struggle with the double ‘r,’ ‘z,’ or ‘s’ sounds. Tongue twisters provide agility and assistance in pronouncing challenging words.
Moreover, tongue twisters introduce us to new words that sound similar but are different, helping improve auditory skills. I firmly believe in using tongue twisters in Spanish classes to enhance pronunciation.
Tongue twisters are valuable tools for correct reading aloud, so it’s not recommended to memorize them. Instead, repeat them until you can master and overcome the difficulty.
Here are some tongue twisters for you to practice:
Try saying them aloud clearly and quickly, gradually increasing speed. Repeat them many times.
✅ Barbara had a cow
Named Valencia
Dressed in white
Danced with boots, a broom, all of you, and Valentín.
✅ Pablo Pablito nailed a little nail
What little nail did Pablo Pablito nail?
✅ Chiqui was a tiny girl
Chiqui’s jacket was tiny
Because if Chiqui had a tiny jacket
Chiqui’s jacket would be tiny.
✅ R with an ox, cart
R with a rail
R with the wheel
The wheel of the train.
✅ History is the successive narration
Of events that happened
Successively in the succession
Successive times.
✅ He who eats little coconut,
Buys little coconut;
He who covers little with a cape,
Buys a little cape.
Since I eat little coconut,
I buy little coconut,
And as I cover myself little with a cape,
I buy a little cape.
✅ Pedro Pablo Perez Pereira
Poor Portuguese painter
Paints landscapes for little money
To pay for a ticket
To be able to pass through Paris.
✅ If Sara marries
With the jacket Paca takes out,
Neither Sara marries,
Nor does Paca take out the jacket from the sack.
✅ Manuel Micho, on a whim,
Mechs the meat of a male
And yesterday a boy said:
Much male Manuel mechs.
✅ Rasquín was a rail
That scratched on a cliff,
With a rough cliff-scratcher
Scratching that scratched ended with the cliff,
Scratch the cliff, scratched a corner.
✅ An old man from Badajoz had an old clapper,
One day it went down below and the clapper went up
Being the old man from Badajoz older than the clapper.
✅ Six saws saw six seats
Sixty-six saws saw sixty-six seats
Seventy-six saws saw seventy-six seats.
At WorldsAcross, we offer group and individual classes where you can practice these tongue twisters with super fun native tutors from all over Latin America.
