Accent Expert Explains How Tongue Twisters Work | WIRED

Dialect coach Erik Singer is back, this time to take a look at tongue twisters. We've all tried tongue twisters in our lives, and know how hard they can be! But "why" are they hard? What makes one group of words more difficult to speak fluidly than others? Erik explains why our tongues get so twisted up, and breaks down how different tongue twisters affect different people with different accents.



MRI Tongue Twister footage courtesy of Professor Ian Wilson, CLR Phonetics Lab at the University of Aizu, Japan

Sagittal Section Diagram courtesy of Professor Daniel C. Hall, Linguistics & Department of English Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, N.S.

https://incl.pl/sammy/



Thank you for all our tongue twister participants!

Nicole Cunniff

Larry Chan

Taylor Faires

Nichole Holze

Alina Peng

Sarah Jack

Siobhan Pesce

Bob Wendland

Anushka Conway

Maxine Jones

Jordan Trafford

Elizabeth Cartwright

Brooke Henzell

Tim Mills

Clare/Clisare Cullen

Kamal Batra

Dylan Rogers

Kayla Pereira

Marcus A Siler

Louise Starks

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Accent Expert Explains How Tongue Twisters Work | WIRED