For a talent show at a summer school held in Bulgaria, for students from
around the world, my Polish roommate and I collected tongue twisters.  She
managed to learn 
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
She sells sea shells by the sea shore

and I managed
Strc prst skrz krk (Czech - stick your finger through your throat) and
Navrh brda vrba mrda (Serbocroatian - Atop a hill a willow shakes) and
the clear winner: (which I will probably spell wrong), in Polish

W Szczebrzescinie schacz brzmi w scynie.  (It is so badly spelled that the
only word I could find in the dictionary was brzmi - resound). 

Do all languages have tongue twisters?  Please contribute some more.

17 responses total.

My contributions will only be in English until further notice.  Try:

I slit a sheet,
a sheet I slit,
and on this slitted sheet,
I sit.

(The faster you say it, try not to say the s-word! :-)

Lovely!  Thanks.  I will try saying (not doing) this.

W Szczebrzeszynie chrza,szcz brzmi w trzcinie.

The a, is really a with the , beneath it and reads on.

sz = sh, cz = ch, ch = kh, rz = zh, ci = chi, nie = nye, y = i

In the city of S. a beetle makes noises in the reeds.


The slit sheet reminded my Polish friend of:

Za,b zupa ze,bowa   (Tooth, tooth soup)
Da,b zupa de,bowa    (Oak, oak soup)

If you say it fast you get dupa for zupa.  Meaning is 'arse'.
.

Also from Polish:  Gdy jest susza szosa sucha.
Same problems as 'seashells'.  j = y
(susha, shosa, sukha)
Don't French or German or any Indian languages have tongue-twisters?

I knew some Spanish ones once, but I forgot them.

Here's a simple Hebrew one:

Sara shara shir sameach.  [Sarah sings a happy song.]

The one above about slitting sheets reminded me of:

One smart feller, he felt smart.
Two smart fellers, they felt smart.
Three smart fellers, they felt smart.
[And so on and on.  Sooner or later, someone "smelt fart."]

Also, the simple but tricky:  Unique New York.  [New Yeek Yew Nork is
what people always end up saying.]

Dutch:
De kat krabt de krullen van de trap
(the cat scratches chunks of wood from the staircase)

this one is better:
De knappe kapper kapt knap, maar de knecht van de knappe kapper kapt 
knapper dan de knappe kapper kappen kan
(the handsome hairdresser dresses hair well, but the handsome 
hairdresser's helping hand dresses hair better than the handsome
hairdresser can dress hair)

I finally figured out that 'helping hand' was knecht, which is probably some
sort of apprentice.  Correct?

When reading the Dutch in #7 do not use the short a as in English cat, but
rather the a as in English father. 

I read it like German, any major differences in pronunciation?

Accents are quite different, with Dutch more in the throat. However there
are no g's in the saying to really bring this out. The aa in maar (but)
is a unique Dutch diphthong, not similar to any other language. I did
manage to approximate it after a couple of years living there.....

In 'knappe' etc, do you pronounce the K, or leave it off the way you do in
the English 'knob'?

The k is pronounced.

Indeed, that's the whole joke about the twister. The combination of k 
with a clearly pronounced n mixes up with the k without the n.
So you'd have to say knappe with emphasis on both first characters.
I looked upon it again and I'd say that with sustaining  with german 
you'd come quite some ways.
I can say the second one very rapidly, grin.
But the english ones always bother me.
Even the she sells sea shells by the seashore.

Does Dutch have both s and sh?  I thought there was also skh.

No.
examples for s-sound:

cigarette

school (school; the 'ch' sounds like scraping your throat, the 'oo' 
sounds like roam))

spook (ghost/spook; the 'oo ' sounds like roam)

champagne (champaign)

I always liked it that our English word boat comes from the Dutch, an early
sea-faring nation. They write it boot, but that is pronounced as we pronounce
boat. 

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