Verbal Exercises

This following verse is a great test of your breath control and your diction.

My eyes are fully open to my awful situation,

I shall go at once to Roderic and make him an oration.

I shall tell him I’ve recovered my forgotten moral senses,

And I don’t care twopence-half-penny for any consequences.

Now I do not want to perish by the sword or by the dagger,

But a martyr may indulge a little pardonable swagger,

And a word or two of compliment my vanity would flatter,

But I’ve got to die tomorrow, so it doesn’t really matter!

These tongue twisters are a great way to practice using your mouth to speak clearly.

Exercises for Consonants

· I need a box of biscuits, a box of mixed biscuits, and a biscuit mixer.

· Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,

Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

· He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.

· The jolly collie swallowed a lollipop.

· She slit the sheets, the sheets she slit.

· The Leith police dismisseth us.

· Twixt this and six thick thistle sticks.

· Red leather, yellow leather.

· She sells sea shells by the seashore, and the shells she sells are sea shells.

· The sixth Sikh Sheik's sixth sheep's sick. (Technically, "sheik" should be pronounced like the English word "shake" -- but that would throw off the rhyme with "sheep." Try it both ways!)

· Three free thugs set three thugs free.

· Charles deftly switched straight flange strips.

· Gwen glowered and grimaced at Glen's gleaming greens.

Exercises for Vowels

· Fancy! That fascinating character Harry McCann married Anne Hammond. (This may look easy, but if you are not pronouncing all the "short a" sounds identically, you have work to do.)

· Lot lost his hot chocolate at the loft.

· Snoring Norris was marring the aria.

Exercises for Everything

· Eleven benevolent elephants.

· Girl gargoyle, guy gargoyle.

· Rubber baby buggy bumpers.

· She stood on the balcony inexplicably mimicking him hiccupping and amicably welcoming him in.

Repeaters

I've set these aside a special class of tongue twister -- the kind that becomes more challenging the more you say it. So if you don't find each one "hard to say" at first, just keep repeating it until you do!

· Unique New York.

· Toy boat.

· Lemon liniment.