Somewhere in a Spanish-speaking rainforest, the mischievous fauna spends the day messing around with personal pronouns.
Fun fact: the name of this bird comes from the Tupi word “tukana”, an extinct Tupian language that was spoken by the native Tupi people of Brazil. It made its way into many languages through the Portuguese “tucano”.
Would you like to find out more about the Spanish pronouns? Check out the Linguiputians’ masterpiece: Tú, usted, vosotros!
This week, French gets its turn with an illustrated collection of tongue twisters or virelangues.
Tongue twisters are somewhat humorous phrases that rely on alliteration 1, rapid alternation between similar but distinct phonemes 2, and other phonetic devices that make them fairly difficult to articulate, even for native speakers.
Due to their phonetic complexity, tongue twisters are a fun way to train your ear and pronunciation in foreign languages. They can help you differentiate minimal pairs, train muscle placement and develop clearer speech patterns.
Thanks to my friend François, you can listen to the pronunciation of each virelangue. Just click on the audio track below each illustration. Allons-y!
C’est fini! Do you have a favorite virelangue, or maybe one that is impossible to pronounce? Do you know more tongue twisters? Leave me a comment!
Did I ever tell you that Latin is one of my top 5 favorite languages? That’s right. I took Latin back in high-school. We studied the language, learnt about their culture and read Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Sometimes my mind would wander off to things that may or may not have happened during the Roman Empire…
