Tounge twisters
"So that means you need to know things even when you don't need to know them. You need to know them not because you need to know them but because you need to know whether or not you need to know. If you don't need to know, you still need to know so that you know that there is no need to know."
This sentence by Bernard Woolley piqued my reading habits and changed my speech forever.
Dear toastmasters and guests, how do you think one sentence can be held responsible for so many changes?
This is a form of tongue twister which I heard for the first time in a TV serial "Yes Prime Minister". This particular episode "Man overboard" was telecast on 3rd December 1987 on BBC. Sometime later it was telecast on Doordarshan in India. Around the same time, I read a Play "My fair Lady which was an adaptation of a novel, Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. A phonetics scholar Professor Higgins is trying to make a flower girl Elisa Doolittle presentable for the high society by teaching her pronunciation and getting rid of cockney accent. I still remember two sentences from the play "In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen" and another one "How much dew does a dewdrop drop if dewdrops do drop dew?"
My dear Toastmasters and Guests, Tongue twisters are words, phrases, or sentences that are difficult to say because of a varying combination of similar sounds. They can be very challenging as well as motivating and fun to learn. Due to this, People want to repeat tongue twisters. The purpose of Tongue Twisters is to speak the English language to perfection. The subtle changes in the spellings make the words mean different, look different, and definitely pronounced different.
These are loads of benefits attached to them, apart from entertainment and time pass
1. They strengthen and stretch the muscles involved in speech
This muscle exercise leads to clearer pronunciation; clearer speech patterns, and helps rectify some of the hardest sounds for you. They’re also just fun, making learning pronunciation – something that can be quite frustrating – more enjoyable.
2. They show you which sounds are difficult for you
Depending on your native language and your own strengths and weaknesses, some sounds will be harder for you than others. Tongue twisters can really highlight which sounds you’re struggling with.
3. They are a great warm up
Even if you’re a native speaker or you’ve mastered English pronunciation, tongue twisters are a great warm-up exercise before you make a presentation, speak in public, teach a class, lead a meeting, act, and more!
In Toastmasters, we often see a speaker is not effective as the listeners are not able to understand him speaking. If the speaker is mumbling, "Swallowing" parts of words or even entire phrases, or speaking so quickly that it becomes really difficult to hear what he or she is saying.
Tongue twisters are an excellent vehicle for speech clarity. To say a tongue twister properly, you have to concentrate on what you're saying and fully enunciate each word and syllable - otherwise your words are going to get all twisted together into a garbled mishmash that means nothing.
Can YOU say 'pad kid poured curd pulled cold'?
Psychologists reveal that this is the world's hardest tongue twister
• MIT researchers in Boston found that certain combinations of sounds appear to make people lose control of their mouths
• They asked volunteers to say 'pad kid poured curd pulled cold' repeatedly, which defeated most people taking part in the experiment.
There are many popular tongue twisters but I have tried to collect for all of us to enjoy. They are:
A sailor went to sea to see, what he could see. And all he could see was sea, sea, sea.
I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won't wish the wish you wish to wish.
I thought a thought. But the thought I thought wasn’t the thought I thought I thought. If the thought I thought I thought had been the thought I thought, I wouldn’t have thought so much.
Do you know that there is a Toastmasters club named Alameda Tongue twisters club and another club by the name of Texas tongue twisters club in US.
Are you aware that there is International tongue twisters day; it is celebrated on the second Sunday of every November. This year it is on 12th November.
Tongue twisters are not limited to the English language. Almost all native languages boast of some very fine tongue twisters. Hindi being my native language, I would like to share one or two interesting ones in Hindi as well.
“Oonth uncha, oonth ki peeth unchi, unche oonth ki poonchh unchi”
“Khadak Singh ke khadakne se khadakti hain khidkiyan, khidkiyon ke khadakne se khadakta hai Khadak Singh"
If you understand, say "understand". If you don’t understand, say "don’t understand". But if you understand and say "don’t understand". How do I understand that you understand? Understand!
So, if you understand, then can everyone present repeat after me 5 times "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream"
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें