15 Japanese tongue twisters (hayakuchi kotoba), with romaji

Japanese calls them 早口言葉 — hayakuchi kotoba, "fast-mouth words" — and they're a TV-show staple: celebrities get three tries on camera, fail, and the nation laughs. The genre works differently from English twisters: Japanese has fewer sounds, so the traps are rhythm and mora timing rather than consonant collisions.

The classics

1. 生麦生米生卵 — Nama mugi, nama gome, nama tamago. Raw wheat, raw rice, raw egg. THE Japanese tongue twister — the one everyone's grandmother knows.

2. 赤巻紙青巻紙黄巻紙 — Aka makigami, ao makigami, ki makigami. Red scroll, blue scroll, yellow scroll. The "makigami" repetition derails by round two.

3. 隣の客はよく柿食う客だ — Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da. The guest next door is a guest who eats a lot of persimmons. KY-cluster drill.

4. 東京特許許可局 — Tōkyō tokkyo kyoka kyoku. Tokyo Patent Approval Office. Five words, and the KY/KO alternation defeats native newsreaders — legendarily used in announcer auditions.

5. バスガス爆発 — Basu gasu bakuhatsu. Bus gas explosion. Three words. Say it three times. National catastrophe.

More to drill

6. Sumomo mo momo mo momo no uchi. — Plums and peaches are both kinds of peaches. (すもももももももものうち — in hiragana it's a wall of も)
7. Kaeru pyoko-pyoko mi pyoko-pyoko, awasete pyoko-pyoko mu pyoko-pyoko. — frog-hopping counting rhyme; pure rhythm training
8. Niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru. — In the garden there are two chickens. (Four "niwa"s, four different meanings)
9. Akapajama kipajama chapajama. — Red pajamas, yellow pajamas, brown pajamas. (×3)
10. Kono kugi wa hikinukui kugi da. — This nail is a hard-to-pull-out nail.
11. Shinshanshosha no shashinshū. — The new company president's photo collection. (SH-storm)
12. Tonari no take wa yoku take tatekaketa. — bamboo propped against the neighbor's fence; T/K rhythm
13. Kisha no kisha wa kisha de kisha shita. — The reporter of your company returned by train. (Same word, four meanings)
14. Bōzu ga byōbu ni jōzu ni bōzu no e o kaita. — The monk skillfully drew a picture of a monk on the folding screen. (Long-vowel discipline)
15. Ura niwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru. — the extended chicken-garden version of #8; the final boss

For learners

Hayakuchi kotoba train the two things English speakers get wrong in Japanese: mora timing (every syllable equal length — English stress habits mangle #7 instantly) and long vs short vowels (#14: bōzu vs bozu changes the meaning). Going the other way, Japanese speakers drilling English R/L will find that specific fight here.

The tongue twister test scores your speed and clarity from a 15-second recording — works as well for basu gasu bakuhatsu as for Peter Piper.

FAQ

What are Japanese tongue twisters called? 早口言葉, hayakuchi kotoba — "fast-mouth words."

What's the hardest Japanese tongue twister? For natives: Tōkyō tokkyo kyoka kyoku (#4) and basu gasu bakuhatsu (#5). For learners, #6 and #15 — the mono-syllable walls — usually win.