Chinese, Mandarin Tongue Twisters
绕口令 (rào kǒu lìng)

Rough Translations

1. A pan on the table, there's a bottle in the pan: bang, bang, bang. Is it the bottle hitting the pan or the pan hitting the bottle? 
2. The cowboy longs for Miss Liu (surname). Miss Liu pines for the cowboy. The cowboy longs for Miss Liu year in, year out. Miss Liu pines for the cowboy for ever and ever. 
3. An old man, holding (a bowl of) soup, climbed up a tower. The soup was hot. The tower (steps) slippery; (so) the soup got spilt (and) the soup scalded the tower (steps). 
4. On the wall hangs a drum, on which a tiger is painted. The tiger clawed a hole into the drum. Taking a piece of cloth to repair it, I didn’t know whether the cloth was mending the drum or the cloth was mending the tiger. 
5. Mother is riding a horse. The horse moves slowly. Mother chides the horse. 
6. Niuniu (Kid's nickname) drives an ox, but the ox is too stubborn to move, so he pinches it. 
7. Red phoenix, pink phoenix, pink-red phoenix. 
8. The teacher is 44, isn't (s)he? 
9. On a green mountain grows a vine. Under the vine there hangs a copper bell. When the wind blows, the vine moves, and so does the bell. When the wind stops, the vine stops, and the bell stops too. 
10. A bamboo pole is long, and a bench is wide. The bamboo pole was bound to the bench. The bench did not allow the pole to be bound to it, but the pole insisted on being bound to the bench. 
11. When eating grapes don't spit out the skin, when not eating grapes spit out the skin. 
12. 4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40, 44 stone lions are dead. 
13. There's a pear on the tree; mud on the ground. The wind blows the pears; the pears fall to the ground. The pears roll in the mud; the mud sticks to the pears. 
14. The Useful Lady of the West was 44 years old at the time of her death. 
15. Is the teacher a 44-year-old? 
16. If you know, just say you know. If you don't know, just say you don't know. You shouldn't know and say you don't know. And you shouldn't NOT know and say you DO know. You know? 
 


Thanks

Pierre Abbat, Yeung Cecilia, Janie Chan, Charles ‘Charlie' Chu, Todd Cornell, Nathan Faries, Jan Feng, Daniel Foster, Wai Keet Hew, Paul Jackson, Gregor Kneussel, Zhijun Kou, Wolf Kozel, Xu Zeng Lai, David Leip, Amber Martin, Carl Masthay, Robert Newman, Zhongyuan (Jonny) Shi, Jörg Sziegat, Washington Wong, Lilian Yan, Angelika Yeh, Patrick Zein, Wen Zhai, Allen Kairen Zhuang

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