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TongbrekersHear · say · score

Dutch tongue twisters, out loud.

Hear a native voice, then try to say it yourself and get scored. From makkelijk to gemeen.

Makkelijkkr1/57

De kat krabt de krullen van de trap.

The cat scratches the curls off the stairs.

Sound on to listen; microphone needed to score. Audio isn't stored.

Why tongue twisters

The fastest way to fix the hard sounds.

Train the hard sounds

Dutch sch, g, r and consonant clusters are exactly what tongue twisters drill. Repeat them and your mouth stops fighting you.

Hear it, then beat it

A native voice says each one — slow it to 0.5× for the evil ones — then you record yourself and see how close you got.

Actually fun

From 'een goede kok kookt goede kost' to 'de koetsier poetst de postkoets met postkoetspoets'. Good luck.

Common questions

How does this tongue-twister tool work?

Pick a difficulty (or all 57 of them), hear a native Dutch voice say the tongbreker — you can slow it down — then press 'Say it & score' to record yourself. It gives you a pronunciation score and colours each word by how well you said it, so you can see exactly where your tongue tripped.

Why are Dutch tongue twisters good practice?

Tongue twisters force you to produce the sounds learners find hardest in Dutch — the guttural g and ch, the rolled or guttural r, the sch cluster (school, scheef), and rapid consonant chains. Practising them builds the muscle memory that makes normal Dutch words come out cleanly.

What's the hardest Dutch tongue twister?

Famous evil ones include 'De koetsier poetst de postkoets met postkoetspoets' (the coachman polishes the mail coach with mail-coach polish) and anything piling up the -cht- sound like 'Wij smachten naar achttien prachtige nachten'. And of course Scheveningen — the town whose name was reportedly used to spot non-native speakers.

Is it free and does it need a microphone?

The tool is free and needs no login. Hearing the tongue twisters only needs sound; the scoring needs microphone access, which your browser will ask for the first time you press record. Your audio is scored and not stored.