Polish is one of the most difficult languages in the world and Polish pronunciation is known to be particularly difficult to master by foreigners. Here we share our picks of some of the most famous Polish tongue twisters. They give even Poles a run for their money. Try them at your own risk and share the results!
Konstantynopolitańczykowianeczka
Is a made-up word with the only purpose to be the longest in the Polish language (it’s describing young female living in Constantinople)
Rozrewolwerowany rewolwerowiec rozrewolwerował urewolwerowanego rewolwerowca
We head to the wild west with this one. You could translate it as – a disarmed gunfighter disarmed armed gunfighter.
Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz, Chrząszczyżewoszyce powiat Łękołody
PHEW, that’s a mouthful. It is the name, surname and birthplace of a fictional character from Polish cult comedy „Jak rozpętałem II-gą wojnę światową.” („How I started the Second World War”). You can watch the clip below:
Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami
Classic tongue twister. It’s nothing more but a table with broken legs – it sounds so much easier in English. (You can cheat a bit with this one and say stół bez nóg – table without legs)
Pójdźże, kiń tę chmurność w głąb flaszy
Come on, stick this cloudiness into the bottom of the flask. (Drown your sorrows in the bottle) This ordinary sentence is also known as pangram and contains all 32 letters of the Polish alphabet which is an equivalent to „The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”
Król Karol kupił królowej Karolinie korale koloru koralowego
Another classic example of tongue twisters. Kids in preschool practice their word pronunciation with it. It goes like this: King Charles bought queen Caroline a coral-colored pearl necklace.
W czasie suszy, szosą suchą Sasza szusował na szyszce
During drought, Sasha skidded on a cone on a dry road.
Wyindywidualizowaliśmy się z rozentuzjazmowanego tłumu
We isolated ourselves from an overly enthusiastic crowd. All linguistics majors will die for a phrase like this one. Thankfully, it is highly improbable that you will ever use it in daily conversations. Then again, if you really want to impress your Polish friends, forget about all the Brzęczyszczykiewicz and chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie and better try to master this one.
So are you up for a challenge? Send us a video and we will share it on our social media channels! What are some of the well-known tongue twisters in your languages? Share them with us!
