Tongue twister

"Tongue twister" is a distinctive language art form. It refers to an expression that is difficult to articulate clearly, as is composed by words of similar pronunciations but different meanings. For example, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper" is such an English tongue twister. However, in Chinese, it is the additional four tones – high ,level, rising, falling-rising and falling, of which all Chinese words have one as its value, that also help to make up a tongue twister.A typical example for beginners is "ma". It can mean very differently depending on the tone: "mother" (妈mā), "hemp"(麻má) "horse"(马mǎ), "scold"(骂mà).Thus, a nice little tongue twister of those with an interest in Chinese tones is: "妈妈骑马,马慢,妈妈骂马", which means "mother rides a horse; the horse is slow; mother scolds the horse".There are more resources for you as follows:四和十： 四是四,十是十，十四是十四，四十是四十，谁能分得清,请来试一试。The Number Four and Ten:"Four" sounds four; "ten" sounds ten; "fourteen" sounds fourteen; "forty" sounds forty. Who can make clear the distinctions? Come and have a try. You can have a nice practice in this tongue twister in telling the retroflex consonant from the rough consonant.化肥： 黑化肥发灰，灰化肥发黑。黑化肥发灰不发黑，灰化肥发黑不发灰。Fertilizer:Blake fertilizer turns grey; grey fertilizer turns black. Black fertilizer turns grey but not black; grey fertilizer turns black but not grey.
You can have a nice practice in this tongue twister in telling the consonant "h" from "f".Anyway, it is good way of practicing your Chinese pronunciation and tones through those interesting tongue twisters.
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