From tongue-twisters that could save your life to ones that could twist your eye. Here’s the most popular Polish tongue twisters.
1.Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami (A table with broken legs)
This is a favourite with many Polish children (or probably it’s a favourite with adults who use it to torture children). As you can see, the difficulty here lies not in the sequence of specific difficult Polish sounds, but rather in the middle part of the ‘powyłamywanymi’ word – a source of eternal fun.
2.Król Karol kupił królowej Karolinie korale koloru koralowego (King Carol bought coral-coloured beads for Queen Caroline)
The troubling alternation between the trill R and approximant L is a classic humour inducer among many languages. (At least those that have a distinction between R and L – sorry, Japanese!) Also, note that the sentence is an example of a tautogram: all the words start with the same letter.
3.Czy rak trzyma w szczypcach strzęp szczawiu czy trzy części trzciny?
(Does a crab hold in its claws a piece of dock or three pieces of reed?)
Combine fricatives with affricates (c, ć, cz / dz, dź, dż) and we have a problem.
4.W czasie suszy szosa sucha (In dry weather, the street is dry)
Alternating between the fricatives s and sz within a short fragment of text gives even Poles a headache.
[the plant]
Made-In-Poland 