Japanese Tongue Twisters
hayakuchi kotoba

Rough Translations

1. The monk drew a good picture of another monk on the folding screen. 
2. Take two sets of three chicken cackles add them together and they make six chicken cackles. 
3. The reason I have leaned this bamboo aginst this bamboo fence is that I just wanted to lean a bamboo aginst it! 
4. I give nine coconuts from a tropical island to this child, and I give nine coconuts from a tropical island to that child, too. 
5. Instead of catching the tiger, catch a bird, and use the bird as a bait to catch the tiger. 
6. Nine ever-lasting summer coconuts for this child, nine ever-lasting summer coconuts for that child, too. 
7. On the parent turtle is the child turtle, on the child turtle is the grandchild turtle. 
8. This nail is hard to pull out! 
9. The Tokyo patent office hurriedly rejected the permission today. 
10. The Japanese serow (a kind of antelope) and the sika deer are both deer, but certainly the sea lion is not a deer. 
11. The bullet train goes along the tracks saying "shurushuru" (onomatopoeia). 
12. Take two sets of three frog croaks add them together and they make six frog croaks 
13. A little bit of pepper, salt, and soy sauce 
14. chanson singer, new year chanson praise 
15. Red pajamas, green pajamas, brown pajamas 
16. 'monk'-SUBJ 'folding screen'-'on' 'monk'-'of' 'drawing'-OBJ 'ingeniously' 'draw'-AUX-PERFECT. 'The monk drew a picture of a monk quite ingeniously') ['oh' as in 'bohzu', 'byohbu' or 'zyohzu' is a long pure vowel, not a diphthong.] 
17. Red tea kettle, yellow tea kettle, brown tea kettle. 
18. Kanbei, the blacksmith on the corner at Kanda Kajicho, bought roasted chestnuts too hard to bite. His wife threw a tantrum and gnawed on them successfully. 
19. A Japanese plum is a kind of peach, a peach is also a peach, both Japanese plum and peach are kinds of peaches. 
20. bugu = military gear, bagu = horse gear 
21. Red scroll, blue scroll, yellow scroll 
22. There are two chickens in the back yard and two in the front yard. 
23. Raw wheat, raw rice, and raw egg 
24. A jazz singer and a chanson singer. 
25. The gasoline of the bus exploded. 
26. 'my neighbor's' 'guest'-THEME 'lots of' 'persimmon' 'eat' 'guest'-AUX-ASSERTION. There is no relative pronoun in Japanese, so the literal translation of the above may be 'My neighbor's guest is a guest who eats lots of persimmons' A more natural translation into English would be 'My neighbor's guest eats lots of persimmons' or maybe 'The customer sitting next to me is eating a lot of parsimmons.' 
27. Head of the Tokyo patent office 
28. Who placed (this) bamboo (pole) against this bamboo hedge? 
29. Papa's pajamas are yellow pajamas, brown pajamas, and striped pajamas 
30. In (Mr) Niwa's garden, two chickens suddenly ate a crocodile. 
31. If you drink don't drive, if you drive don't drink. 
 


Arigato

Hiromi Chapion, George Crane, Tom Cunningham, Dave Fleming, Jonathan Gregory, Fumiko Hanaoka, Keiko Hata, Deej Heath, Sean Holland, Akiko Kikuchi, Hisao Minami, Kazuko Mizoguchi, Hitoshi Nishino, Romeu Nunes, Gerard Paul-Clark, David Ree, Roger Riyud, Michel Sadur, Kazutoshi Sakamoto, Shingo Sato, Dave Simpson, Armand Suarez, Kat Tanaka, Katsuyuki Yano, Katsuyuki Yano

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