Sumomo mo momo mo momo no uchi.
Plum and peach are both in the peach family.
This tongue twister turns around the word momo which means peach. Sumomo is a plum and all those extra mo are roughly equivalent to ‘and’ and ‘also.’
Niwa no niwa ni wa, niwa no niwatori wa niwaka ni wani wo tabeta.
In Mr. Niwa’s garden, two chickens suddenly ate a crocodile.
The key word here is niwa which means garden. Niwatori is a chicken, niwa means two chickens, niwaka ni means suddenly and wani is a crocodile. All the extra ni and wa are particles that emphasis the preceding words or give them a location, sort of like ‘in the.’
There is another “niwa” tongue twister that I can’t say:
Uraniwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru.
There are two chickens in the back yard and two in the front yard.
Uraniwa is the backyard. I can’t figure out which of the niwa are ‘two’, ‘in the’ and ‘garden.’ Ack!
Posted by kuri at July 08, 2003 10:52 AM“Uraniwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru.”
I think it works like this: Uraniwa ni wa niwa, (in the back garden, two (birds)), niwa ni wa niwa (in the garden, two (birds)) niwadori ga iru. (chickens are there)
Posted by: distal zou on July 8, 2003 11:35 AMMizuno-san told me another one. “Tonari no kyaku wa yoko kaki kuu kyaku da.” The customer next to me eats a lot of persimmons.
hiya, im from singapore.. would like to know if u can help me with my project? i need some close up photos of japanese restaurants or eating place because im doing graphic design for a virtual japanese restaurant. n would like to know if u happen to have any material to help me?
Posted by: xuanie on July 8, 2003 06:07 PMYou need to warn us guijin not to attempt to say such things without having a tongue splint handy… I think I broken myself! :)
Posted by: Randy on July 8, 2003 11:01 PM