Three tongue twisters

niwatori.jpgSumomo mo momo mo momo no uchi.
Plum and peach are both in the peach family.
This tongue twister turns around the word momo which means peach. Sumomo is a plum and all those extra mo are roughly equivalent to ‘and’ and ‘also.’
Niwa no niwa ni wa, niwa no niwatori wa niwaka ni wani wo tabeta.
In Mr. Niwa’s garden, two chickens suddenly ate a crocodile.
The key word here is niwa which means garden. Niwatori is a chicken, niwa means two chickens, niwaka ni means suddenly and wani is a crocodile. All the extra ni and wa are particles that emphasis the preceding words or give them a location, sort of like ‘in the.’
There is another “niwa” tongue twister that I can’t say:
Uraniwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru.
There are two chickens in the back yard and two in the front yard.
Uraniwa is the backyard. I can’t figure out which of the niwa are ‘two’, ‘in the’ and ‘garden.’ Ack!

Recent Posts
Mediatinker by MAIL

Join 38 other subscribers
SEARCH
Longer Ago

Mediatinker, Kristen McQuillin, is an American-born resident of Japan since 1998. This blog chronicles her life, projects, thoughts, and small adventures.