TONGUE TWISTERS, TRABALENGUAS, FOR LANGUAGE PRACTICE

Tongue twister (trabalenguas): is a sentence that is hard to articulate because it has a succession of similar consonant or vowel sounds: Un tigre, dos tigres, tres tigres. She sells seashells on the seashore.   

In order to ease the mastery of sounds I have cooked up tongue-twisting drills that will pave the way to practice phonemes –a unit of a phonetic system, a single sound- in a simple and practical manner. 

Language acquirement is thought of as a mental process where the intellect plays the dominant role, thus we forget that it is also a physical task: language involves –of course- sound, and human sound is made by airflow in the larynx, and articulated and modulated by the different parts of the mouth: lips, teeth, tongue, alveolar ridges, hard and soft palate and even the nose. In a nutshell: language is also a mechanical technique that involves using accurately parts of the human anatomy to produce the right sounds. It implies a physical skill, a physical technique. Our tongue gets twisted, se nos traba la lengua, if we do not practice the proper technique.

To articulate a sound we must position the tongue in a certain place. The point of articulation –the point where the tongue rests- to utter the sound /t/ in English and Spanish is different. Try to pronounce the Spanish tú and compare it to the English two, and you will notice how unlike the sounds are. The tip of the tongue in Spanish rests against the upper teeth, and against the upper alveolar ridge in English. The trilled Spanish /r/ requires a mechanical position completely different from the English /r/. Try to voice the Spanish rata and the English rat and you will get the idea.

May I say that language teachers forget this fundamental fact in language learning? They insist on grammatical points: syntax sometimes, idiomatic expressions, vocabulary… but they seldom train their students in the mechanics of language, the nuts and bolts of language. Pupils have a hard time trying to imitate sounds because their vocal organs refuse to follow orders and insist on using the mechanics of their native language, the positions and openings that the tongue and the mouth acquired early in childhood, babyhood, better perhaps.

Drill 1. I have mentioned above the differences in the English and Spanish /t/ sound. Get a native speaker to repeat this tongue twister several times and then practice out loud:

“Cuando cuentes cuentos, cuenta cuántos cuentos cuentas cuando cuentes cuentos.” The different English /t/ sound is found in “I sent toast to ten tense stout saints in tall tents.”

Drill 2. Believe you me: the Spanish /p/ sound has nothing to do with the English /p/ sound. Again, we will have to get a native speaker to read this and then we will repeat: “Pancha plancha con ocho planchas, ¿Con cuántas planchas plancha Pancha?”

And now the English /p/: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?”

Drill 3. The English sound of /sh/ as in sugar, she, sheep is not easy for speakers of Spanish who might have to practice with this -and be careful with the sounds!-: “Susie is sitting in a shoe shine shop. Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.”

Drill 4. The Spanish fricative –soft- /b/ ( beso, bueno) appears in English also. If we practice this tongue twister we will learn how to articulate that Spanish /b/ perfectly: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” After this, uttering the Spanish beso, bien, vale, voto, will be a cinch. Again we must seek the aid of a native speaker.

Drill 5. The English /p/, /b/ sounds differ from Spanish in that they are plosive (air is expelled hard. Not so in Spanish.) This twister will help: “Betty bought butter but the butter was bitter, so Betty bought better butter to make the bitter butter better.” See drill 2.)

 Drill 6. The Spanish trilled /r/ can become a nightmare for English speakers. They should repeat this one again and again: “El cielo está enladrillado -¿quién lo desenladrillará?- el desenladrillador que lo desenladrille, buen desenladrillador será.” And this one also: “Treinta y tres tramos de troncos trocearon tres tristes trozadores de troncos.” The English “Robert ran rings around the Roman ruins” is an example of the different /r/ sound in English.