Tongue Twisters in Spanish (Trabalenguas)
  • Anna October 2011
    Tongue twisters are very helpful and fun to practise those sounds that are difficult to pronounce in Spanish, like the "R" sound.

    The Spanish term for "tongue twister" is "trabalenguas".
                Traba = from the verb trabar (to block)
                Lenguas = Tongues

    Here are some of my favourite ones:

                                                      "Como poco coco como,
                                                           poco coco compro"

    Translation: Since I eat little coconut, little coconut I buy.

                                                     "Erre con erre cigarro,
                                                       Erre con erre barril,
                                                  Rápido corren los carros,
                                            Cargados de azúcar al ferrocarril"

    Translation: "An R with an R cigar, an R with an R barrel; rapidly run the cars loaded with sugar of to therailroad"

                                                       "Compro pocas copas,
                                                       pocas copas compro
                                                  y como compro pocas copas,
                                                         pocas copas pago    "

    Translation: "I buy few glasses (of beer or wine), few glasses I buy, as I only buy a few glasses I only pay for a few glasses."

    Literal translations of them in English mostly sound like nonsense,
    but will help give you an idea of what's actually being said.

  • mateo October 2011
    this is amazing......
  • Anna November 2011
    Mateo did you  try to repeat any of those tongue twisters? how did it go?
  • THoth November 2011
    El "R" uno es tan bueno para practicando el "trill". 
  • Anna November 2011
    Check this one out:

    Tres tristes tigres comen trigo en un triste trigal.

    Three sad tigers eat wheat in a sad wheat field.

    I am almost certain that this is the most popular and known tonguetwister in Spain. And a difficult one. I also have trouble when trying to repeat it faster! "TR" and "T+vowel" combined in a sentence is very hard to get it right.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc2gwfvymug



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