17 Best Spanish Tongue Twisters: Can YOU Pronounce Them? 😜
In this article you will learn 17 of the most popular Spanish tongue twisters (trabalenguas), so you can impress your friends by sounding like a true latino/latina!
Many people from abroad find the pronunciation to be un poco difíci (a bit hard), but after reading this article, you’re going to roll those Rs and pronounce other difficult words in Spanish as if it’s nothing! So see this as some fun Spanish pronunciation practice!
We are going through them del más fácil al más difícil (from the easiest to hardest)…
1. Spanish tongue twisters to practice RR (rolled R)
Fácil (Easy)
- Dábale arroz a la zorra el abad. (The abbot gave rice to the fox.)
Medio (Medium)
- Rápido corren los carros, cargados de azúcar del ferrocarril.(The wagons, loaded with sugar from the railroad, run fast.)
Difícil (Tough)
- El perro de San Roque no tiene rabo porque Ramón Ramirez se lo ha robado.(The San Roque dog does not have a tail because Ramón Ramírez has stolen it.)
Important note: A lot of these phrases don’t make sense, and the translation I’m giving you is, let’s say, a bit loose, but I bet you can already identify certain words like perro or rápido.
2. Tongue twisters to practice TR
Fácil (Easy)
- El dragón tragón tragó carbón. (The glutton dragon swallowed coal.)
Medio (Medium)
- Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal. (Three sad tigers swallowed wheat in a wheat field.)
Difícil (Tough)
- Treinta y tres tramos de troncos trozaron tres tristes trozadores de troncos. (Thirty-three lengths of logs were chopped by three sad log splitters.)
3. Spanish pronunciation to practice CH
Fácil (Easy)
- Me han dicho que has dicho un dicho. (They told me that you said a saying)
Medio (Medium)
- Pancha plancha con cuatro planchas. (Pancha irons with four irons.)
Difícil (Tough)
- Chiquito chanchito cochinito, echado en la charca está. (Little pig, little pig, lying in the pond is.)
4. Learn Spanish Ñ (Remember, this is one of the letters that only exists in Spanish)
Fácil (Easy)
- Mi ñaño es ñoño (My brother is a nerd).
Little note: Ñaño is used by some countries in Latin America and it means “brother”. It comes from Quechua and it’s also used in Ecuador to refer to your closest friends.
Medio (Medium)
- Una araña sueña con una cabaña que tiene una telaraña. (A spider dreams of a hut that has a web.)
Difícil (Tough)
- Ñoño Yáñez come ñame en las mañanas con el niño. (Silly Yañez eats yams in the morning with the boy.)
5. Trabalenguas to practice Y (and LL)
Fácil (Easy)
- Hoy ya es ayer y ayer ya es hoy. (Today is already yesterday and yesterday is already today.)
Medio (Medium)
- En una pesadilla Padilla sube la resbaladilla con una ardilla. (In a nightmare Padilla climbs the slide with a squirrel.)
Difícil (Tough)
- Que vaya a caballo Bollullo Bayano con Bayo Lavalle a Bayona. (Let Bollullo Bayano ride with Bayo Lavalle to Bayona.)
¿Qué tal vas hasta ahora? (How are you doing so far?) ¿Cuál fue el más difícil de pronunciar? (Which was the most difficult to pronounce?)
6. Challenge – Use tongue twisters to improve your pronunciation
¿Listo para el desafío? (Ready for the challenge?) I have two tongue twisters for you, here we go:
- El niño está sosegado. ¿Quién lo desasosegará? El desasosegador que lo desasosiegue, buen desasosegador será. (The child is calm. Who will upset him? Whomever distresses him will be a good disturber.)
- Jamás juntes a jinetes con los jóvenes germánicos ni generes germicidas ni congeles gelatinas ni ajusticies a juristas en sus juntas judiciales. (Never join horsemen with Germanic youths, or generate germicides or freeze jellies, or execute jurists in their judicial meetings.).
7. Practice Spanish with FREE Spanish Training
Muy bien! Did you find this hard? Which Trabalenguas was your favourite? Which one was impossible to pronounce? Let me know in the comments, and also tell me if you were able to do the challenge! No pares de practicar (don’t stop practicing); in the end, you’ll be able to pronounce all of them!
Feel free to check out the other videos from me and the other Spring Spanish teachers on our channel for Spanish. We also have a free, more in-depth Spanish training on our website where you’ll discover the method we use in our Spring Spanish Academy to teach students to speak fluent Spanish. You also get some free sample Spanish lessons there that come straight from our Academy!
