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České jazykolamy
A selection of my favorite Czech tongue-twisters.
The infamous sentence without vowels:
Strč prst skrz krk. [Stick a finger through your throat.]
Or:
Vlk zhlt hrst zrn, zvlh plž pln skvrn! [A wolf wolfs a handful of grain, [and] slobbers on a spotted slug.]
The ř, classic:
Tři sta třiatřicet stříbrných stříkaček stříkalo přes tři sta třiatřicet stříbrných střech. [Three-hundred thirty-three silvery splashes over three-hundred thirty-three silvery roofs.]
The ř, food:
Kmotře Petře, nepřepepři pepřem toho vepře. [God-father Peter, don’t over-pepper that pork with pepper.]
The ostriches:
Pštros s pštrosicí a pštrosáčaty šli do pštrosárny. [The ostrich father, mother, and baby went to the ostrich area.]
And then English:
Betty Botter bought a bit of bitter butter, and she put it in her batter but it made her batter bitter. So, she bought a bit of better butter and she put it in her batter and it made her bitter batter better.
Ha, Czechs, let’s hear you do that one three times fast.
The infamous sentence without vowels:
Strč prst skrz krk. [Stick a finger through your throat.]
Or:
Vlk zhlt hrst zrn, zvlh plž pln skvrn! [A wolf wolfs a handful of grain, [and] slobbers on a spotted slug.]
The ř, classic:
Tři sta třiatřicet stříbrných stříkaček stříkalo přes tři sta třiatřicet stříbrných střech. [Three-hundred thirty-three silvery splashes over three-hundred thirty-three silvery roofs.]
The ř, food:
Kmotře Petře, nepřepepři pepřem toho vepře. [God-father Peter, don’t over-pepper that pork with pepper.]
The ostriches:
Pštros s pštrosicí a pštrosáčaty šli do pštrosárny. [The ostrich father, mother, and baby went to the ostrich area.]
And then English:
Betty Botter bought a bit of bitter butter, and she put it in her batter but it made her batter bitter. So, she bought a bit of better butter and she put it in her batter and it made her bitter batter better.
Ha, Czechs, let’s hear you do that one three times fast.
Posted 29 November 2005 at 10:22.
A graduate student in music and anthropology writing a dissertation about music in Moravia, the eastern third of the Czech Republic. At some point, the Czech Republic's "second city" (that would be Brno) captured my attention, and I've since been blogging about events, arts, music, and other stuff—basically whatever interests me in and around the cityscape. I'm not living in Brno now, but I keep up with the cultural pulse from afar as best I can.
Comments:
Ooh, two new ones for me to practice! I am especially taken with the slobbering wolf and the spotted slug, but that's the kind of thing Santa Cruz alums are drawn to.
I don't think that when I could say the ostrich one there was anything about an ostrich area, though. I think it was just the family. I did a version about moas along the same lines, not that moas make for a very difficult tonguetwister. I can't remember how we figured out the mother moas but the baby must have been moačaty. (We could go to the Národní muzeum and chant it at the moa replica. In fact, let's take Alex and have her film the result.)
10:44 PM, November 29, 2005
Nice tongue twisters - I've known prst krk for years, but the wolf is a new one for me and even better I think I can manage to say it at least one time through fast!
9:34 PM, January 02, 2006
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