Enhance Your English Pronunciation with Tongue Twisters

English pronunciation is a bit typical and the non-native speakers face it at large. The vowel and consonantal sound, subtle sound, consonant cluster, diphthongs, and irregular pronunciation make the words spelling-to-sound different in some words. The regular words may also not be pronounced similarly. So, developing pronunciation skills would be the best solution for it. Apart from different training sessions, tongue twister plays a great role in developing the skill. This may passively increase English speaking fluency. For the different linguistics challenges, clarity of articulation may affect fluency and hamper the engaging speaking of any foreign language. 

In this blog, we are trying to explore the fact of how tongue twister enhances clarity in pronunciation and how they work. Go through the entire context to learn how you will crop the benefits of tongue twister.

What are Tongue Twisters?

Tongue twisters are short phrases or sentences of similar sounding words but they are critical to pronounce side by side in a speed. People make mistakes while pronouncing them. Anybody pronouncing them will enable them enabled smoothly by keeping them side by side. Repetition of vowel and consonants in some critical way makes them pronounce hard when they are placed side by side. When you are accustomed to producing mostly renowned tongue twisters, you will not fumble pronouncing similar words side by side when you are speaking with others or in a public speaking seminar. These tongue twisters are crucial for clear pronunciation.

The most common and reputed tongue twister is "She sells seashells by the seashore". Here you will get the clear pronunciation of "s" and "sh". They are not critical to pronounce when you do it individually. However, you will feel critical when they come side by side or repeatedly. In this way, different pronunciations can be made clear through some well-known tongue twisters.

How Tongue Twisters Improve Pronunciation

Tongue twisters improve pronunciation very much by making your tongue ready to touch the right area in the mouth so that the pronunciation becomes clear and subtle. Here, we are going to explore some effective impacts of tongue twisters to improve your pronunciation level.

1. Enhancing Articulation

One of the most important aspects of tongue twisters is pronouncing words. It is a very common factor for non-native English speakers that they face critical issues in the articulation of words. They need to take training in perfect articulation so that the pronunciation becomes clear. However, articulation is affected when two similarly arranged sounds transfer to different areas in the mouth.

For example, if you notice the sentence, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" you will find that "w" and "ch" come to the pronunciation with quick succession. By practicing such content, anybody can pronounce those two sounds clearly if they appear in quick succession. Practicing these tongue twisters will help all non-native speakers to solve the common issues of "w" and "ch" pronunciation.

2. Helps quickly transfer or articulate location

Voice or words are pronounced with the help of the pharynx, tongue, lip, palate, tooth, and so on. Some words require a combination of areas to pronounce correctly. You can learn them from online spoken English classes at a great institute.

Words are divided according to the articulation areas:

• Bilabial (P, B, M)
• Labiodental (F, V)
• Alveolar (D, T, L, S)
• Interdental [?] (thin) and [ð] (then) [these are IPA symbols]
• Glottal

Some articulation comes with the combination of two places. When the tongue moves from one place to another place and has to bend wherever required. Tongue twister helps practice all these articulations and helps pronunciation make clear when they come in succession. So, it is essential to carry on practicing tongue twisters to clear out the pronunciation. It improves the clarity of speech.

3. Improving Speech Clarity

When learning a new language, you need to utter the language fluently. After a few days of practice, you need to speed up your pronunciation or speed of speech delivery. Otherwise, you will not be able to communicate with others properly. That is why, your speech must be speedy. In this perspective, tongue twisters may help you acquire speed in articulation and pronunciation. It helps pronounce your known words faster without getting confused in articulation. Thus, it involves clarity in speech, even at a higher speed. In a word, you will get a quick succession of articulation of the words that need faster touching to the different articulation spots to pronounce them quickly.

4. Strengthening Muscle Memory

Pronunciation is the articulation of words touching the right place in the mouth (sometimes without touching anywhere). It is the training of your mouth by the order of the brain. After a certain moment, your tongue, jaw, lips, vocal cords, and all other places work with perfect coordination by getting the slightest indication of the brain. When your mouth and its muscles get ready by frequent practice. Then, the articulation becomes faster than ever. In this way, all your muscles related to pronunciation get ready to articulate the word or the entire speech. Thus, muscles become trained and become ready with a memory. The more you practice, the more your mouth becomes accustomed to the specific movements required for various sounds.

For example, if you utter the tongue twister, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" helps you practice the P sound and related other sounds to make it clear. P sound may be clear but when you articulate related sound after P, your mouth and its muscles will be exercised. Over time, your muscles will be more responsive when you utter those speeches. The pronunciation would be smoother.

5. Targeting Difficult Sounds

Articulation becomes difficult when different sounds/pronunciation starts from the same base. For example, the "th" sound in "thanks", and "th" in "then" must not be the same. Starting from the same place of articulation, the pronunciation goes to the different places of articulation. Tongue twister helps pronounce these types of words quickly but smoothly. If you want to pronounce them in a sentence side by side, you may fumble or pronounce them wrongly as the angle of pronunciation is different. Practicing tongue twister helps get rid of the challenges and makes the situation manageable, rather smoother. If you want to learn spoken English, you can also go for tongue twister and improve your pronunciation skills along with spoken skills.

6. Removes language barrier issues

Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, and any other languages have some specific way of pronunciation. The articulation of maximum words is also different from one language to another language. When they try to pronounce English, all of them have to suffer some hardships to articulate fast. This is true for English speakers as well. The English cannot pronounce any language properly without the frequent practice. Tongue twister helps you make ready for articulating words like these.

Consider the tongue twister, "Thirty-three thousand thieves thought that they thrilled the throne throughout Thursday." Here, you will see that the starting point of "th" of all words will be the same but the next syllables are different and you need to transfer the articulation points fast to another area.

7. Boosts Fluency

As you practice tongue twisters regularly you will understand that the word pronunciation accuracy and speaking fluency have improved a lot. Tongue twisters are designed to make you capable of expanding your pronunciation skills. If you have a word in your mind but you may not utter it in the present moment after the uttered word. Tongue twisters help boost fluency at length in this way. Your muscles memorize the word to produce after the same word or in the same context.

Fluent English speakers can often say tongue twisters at a rapid pace without stumbling over their words. As you utter the words again and again at a faster pace, you will be able to increase your overall fluency improvement in a short time. 

How to Start Practicing Tongue Twisters

• Start Slowly

Tongue twisters are designed to cross handles while pronouncing. So, these twisters are created in consideration of the practice of articulation hurdles. You have to start uttering the sentence or phrase slowly, remind it, and gradually increase the speed to its superior level. Rushing through tongue twisters too quickly at the beginning can lead to sloppy pronunciation and it can even reinforce bad habits. You have to keep all these in mind.

• Break It Down

Most tongue twisters are more or less challenging. Break it down into smaller phrases and start articulating. If you have a tongue-twisting line, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?", you can break it as, "How much", "wood would a woodchuck", "if a woodchuck could", "chuck wood". Make all parts practice individually and then practice all at a time and continue several times until it becomes in your control.

• Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

When you repeat the phrases or tongue twisters again and again, you will get accustomed to it. Practice each phrase repeatedly with perfect accuracy. Gradually increase the speed and its attempt. Over time, your muscles will become accustomed to articulating that difficult phrase easily and perfectly. Your pronunciation becomes more precise.

• Record Yourself

Record your tongue twister and listen to where you have pronounced it wrongly or where you could make improvement. If you feel that there are some mispronouncing words, rectify them and practice the same word or phrase again and again. Listen to the audio sample again and again to learn the right pronunciation. You can easily grab the words you want to learn. Measure the progress of your success.

• Use a Mirror

Pronouncing twisting words in front of a mirror is helpful in some aspects. You can notice the word pronunciation and mouth movement. Are your lips, jaws, and tongues moving perfectly with the pronunciation of the words? If all these are not moving as usual, you can try again until you acquire the right pronunciation style. Notice the "P" sound, "th" d sound, and all so that they create the right sound while pronouncing.

Some Funny Tongue Twisters You Can Try:

Start from the beginning of the twisters picked here. They will improve your articulation goal very efficiently and will improve clarity in pronunciation effectively.

• "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?"
• "She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells on the seashore, I'm sure she sells seashore shells."
• "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?"
• "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood."
• "Unique New York, unique New York, you know you need unique New York."
• "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick."

Conclusion

Tongue twisters increase English speaking fluency by elevating the capability of pronunciation that depends on perfect articulation. Tongue twisters help improve clarity and fluency in pronunciation and increase overall speaking confidence. With regular practice, the muscles of your mouth will get ready for refined articulation and thus it enhances the correct pronunciation. The most interesting part of tongue twisters is fun. You can practice with your friends. Everybody will enjoy all these tongue twisters and will learn faster but perfect articulation. Enjoy tongue-twisting!