All the tongue twisters
| Swedish | English | Trains |
|---|---|---|
| Sex laxar i en laxask. | Six salmon in a salmon box. | ks and x |
| Packa pappas kappsäck. | Pack Dad's suitcase. | Short a with a long, hard consonant after it |
| Kvistfritt kvastskaft. | A knot-free broomstick. | Consonant clusters |
| Får får får? Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm. | Do sheep have sheep? No, sheep don't have sheep, sheep have lambs. | Long å, and listening for meaning |
| Flyg, fula fluga, flyg! Och den fula flugan flög. | Fly, ugly fly, fly! And the ugly fly flew. | fl and the three vowels y, u and ö |
| Sju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes av sju sköna sjuksköterskor. | Seven seasick sailors were looked after by seven beautiful nurses. | The sj-sound, spelt sj and sk |
How to practise them
- Listen at the slow speed and read along.
- Say it word by word, slowly, getting every sound right. Speed comes later.
- Join the words two or three at a time, then say the whole line.
- Say it three times in a row, a little faster each time.
- Take the challenge, and come back tomorrow: overnight is when it sticks.
Pick twisters for the sounds you find hard. For the sj-sound, start with sju sjösjuka sjömän; for double consonants and short vowels, packa pappas kappsäck; for clusters, kvistfritt kvastskaft. If a sound itself is new to you, learn it first in the pronunciation trainer, where you hear it in minimal pairs like kära and skära.
Why Swedes love sj
The sj-sound has no counterpart in most languages, and it can be spelt in at least seven ways: sj, skj, stj, sk, ch, sch and -tion. A single word like sjuksköterska (nurse) has it twice with two spellings. That is why the most famous Swedish tongue twisters pile it up. More on the sound and its spellings in our pronunciation guide, and you can practise writing it in the dictation tool.
For melody rather than single sounds, try Swedish word tones. And when you are ready for real conversations, Season 1 of our course is free in full.
These tongue twisters are traditional and circulate in several versions; we give the most common wording. Audio uses your device's Swedish voice.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most famous Swedish tongue twister?
Sju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes av sju sköna sjuksköterskor: seven seasick sailors were looked after by seven beautiful nurses. It is packed with the sj-sound, which learners find hardest, so Swedes love to try it on foreigners.
What is a tongue twister called in Swedish?
En tungvrickare, literally a tongue sprainer. The plural is tungvrickare too.
How is the challenge scored?
Your browser's speech recognition writes down what it hears, and we count how many words of the twister appear in it, in the right order. If every word is recognised we also show your time. The score is a bit of fun, not an exam: recognisers struggle with tongue twisters, native speakers included.
Is my voice recorded?
Not by us. The challenge uses speech recognition built into Chrome and Edge, which send the audio to their own speech service to turn it into text. We only see the text in your browser, and the shareable result contains nothing but the twister and your score.
Do tongue twisters actually help pronunciation?
They help with speed and with moving between sounds that sit close together, such as sj and sk, or x and sk in laxask. They do not teach new sounds on their own: learn those slowly first, in the pronunciation trainer, then use tongue twisters to make them automatic.