Tongue twister

Author: Zhang Hui
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: "The Tongue Twisters" (Revised Edition) is compact, easy to carry, and affordable, making it an excellent language training textbook. Tongue twisters are a great tool for language training. Practicing them diligently can enhance your mental agility, breath control, clarity of articulation, and fluency. Such articulate speech and clear pronunciation are fundamental skills for professionals such as radio and television announcers and hosts, as well as actors in traditional opera, quyi, drama, and film, and singers. For others who rely on spoken language for their work, such as teachers, tour guides, interpreters, and telephone operators, as well as those involved in public speaking and public relations activities, they are also crucial. This book on tongue twisters is also suitable for dialect-speaking regions to practice Mandarin, and it greatly benefits foreign friends and overseas Chinese in improving their pronunciation of Chinese. Additionally, it is beneficial for early language development in children. Tongue twisters are the crystallization of folk wisdom. Many of them originated as language games and have been passed down through generations. Some were created by storytelling and singing artists over the centuries to train their dexterity and breath control, and they have now become our valuable heritage. Others were adapted or created in recent years by performers and announcers to meet professional training needs. Over the years, I have also composed some tongue twisters tailored to broadcasting and hosting practices, such as "Dudu Temple," "Two Wooden Barrels," "Watching Dad," "Worrying in Secret," "Grandma Wants to Say," "Youngsters Getting Married," "Shishi City Has No Shishi," and "Speak 'Er' Only 'Er'." There are a total of 39 segments, all included in this edition. These newly composed tongue twisters are marked with an asterisk () in the table of contents. During the compilation of this book, I collected a wealth of materials and made some localized refinements to ensure more accurate wording, richer content, more concise and perfect sentences, and adherence to the structural characteristics of tongue twisters. In some cases, I adjusted the content to increase the number of repetitions, enhancing their practical value. For example, the original "It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s that I don’t practice. If I don’t get it right the first time, I’ll try again and again until I do. I don’t believe I can’t learn it" was revised to "It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s that I don’t practice. If I don’t get it right the first time, I’ll try again, no regrets, until I learn it." Another example is the tongue twister "Selecting role models in the militia platoon, the role model from Class Six, the role model from Class Seven, the role model from Class Eight, comparing advanced performers on the stage. Advanced performers compare, seeing who is more advanced, selecting eight role models from the platoon to go to Beijing." This was a /in—in9/ crossover tongue twister, which was revised into a /ing/ single-focus training tongue twister: "Selecting role models in the militia platoon, the role model from Class Six, the role model from Class Seven, the role model from Class Eight, comparing advanced performers on the stage. Advanced performers compare, selecting eight from the platoon, the top eight, all going to Beijing." Mandarin Chinese is the standard language of modern Chinese. In the tongue twister "Sky High Sun," the focus is on practicing the pronunciation of the neutral tone word "head." The original was "Sky high sun, mouth high tongue, ground high stone, table high paper head, palm high finger head, tree high branch head, market high head." However, "paper head" and "market head" are not Mandarin words, and in the two-character word "branch head," the "head" cannot be pronounced as a neutral tone in Mandarin. To ensure language training aligns with Mandarin standards and to prevent misunderstandings for dialect-speaking learners, some revisions were made to segments with similar issues. The original content of "Squirrels Catching Brown Rabbits" was about brown rabbits catching squirrels, with a title that did not match the content. Therefore, the title was changed to "Brown Rabbits Catching Squirrels." Some tongue twisters may have been altered over time, with inappropriate wording and numerous typos. In such cases, corrections were made cautiously while preserving the original essence as much as possible. The characteristic of tongue twisters lies in the interweaving and overlapping of easily confused initials, finals, and tones, forming lively, rhyming sentences or segments that require rapid and fluent delivery. However, speaking too quickly can lead to pronunciation errors, hence the alternative names "knotty tongue twisters" or "rapid tongue twisters." This book on tongue twisters has a relatively relaxed selection criteria. Some segments, like "Looking for the Factory Manager" and "A Sweet Potato Rolling Down the Hill," are not particularly tricky and may not strictly fall under the category of tongue twisters, yet they achieve similar effects in language training, so they were included. To facilitate practice, this book categorizes various tongue twisters based on training objectives such as initials, finals, tones, intonation changes, articulation, and breath control. In fact, some tongue twisters are comprehensive exercises, such as "Grandma and Grandma," which is suitable for practicing the pronunciation of the initial /1/ and the diphthong /ao/, as well as breath control. During training, flexibility and focus can be adjusted accordingly.