Sunday, January 10, 2010

A tongue-twisting session

To break the monotony of my tuition class, I introduced one tongue-twister in Hokkien for my students this evening and it had them in stitches for quite some time. Let me share this tongue-twister with readers. It goes like this 'kong kong kong, kong kong kong, kong kong, kong kong kong'. You have to listen to me read them to be able to master it.

To make it easy for readers I will add in the intonation, Here it goes:
'kong3 kong kong4, kong kong4 kong4, kong3 kong, kong4 kong kong4'
Remember that all these sounds are in Hokkien.

To make it meaningful, this is what is contained in the above tongue-twister:
'kong3 kong kong4 means 'my grandpa (kong3 kong) says (kong4) [Note: An example in the use of kong4 is 'lu kong4 ha mi': You (lu) say (kong4) what? (ha mi?)]
'kong kong4 kong4' will mean 'the can (kong kong4) says (kong4)
'kong3 kong' means 'grandfather' in Hokkien.
'kong4 kong kong4' means 'hits (kong4) the can (kong kong4).

The whole tongue-twister simply means 'My grandfather says that the can says that my grandfather hits the can.'

How do you like my unique tongue-twister?

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