Tongue Twisters!

This morning, I was hanging out in Mikey Bustos' uStream chatroom while getting some work done. The chatters, a lot of who were in the Philippines, were trying to encourage Mikey to speak in Tagalog continuously for at least 2 minutes. I thought, oh, my, that is a tall order. (Mikey is a Canadian-born Filipino.)

At least, I know if someone were to ask me to do that, I'd be tongue-tied. Being an American-born Filipino, I at least can understand Tagalog when I hear it spoken (all bets are off with the other Filipino languages... Mr. Bisdak, you know exactly what I mean!) but ask me to speak it, and I freeze. I tell my cousins and my friends, "Maliit na kahon ang Tagalog ko." It's my broken Tagalog way of telling them my Tagalog vocabulary is so small, it fits in a small box ("My Tagalog 'box' is small"). If I'm around Tagalog speakers (and I insist they speak Tagalog around me), one might even hear some Tagalog escape my lips.

My Tito Paeng used to tell me if I were to spend 6 months to a year in the Philippines, I would be able to speak the language, especially since it's in my brain already. Maybe he's right.

Anyway... one of the chatters put a Tagalog tongue twister in chat and dared Mikey to say it with his trademark Filipino accent. I don't think he ever tried it.

I had a look at it, and I thought, "Neat!" Of course, I know of the English tongue twisters (Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; she sold seashells by the seashore, etc.) but I had never heard of the Tagalog ones, so naturally, I was intrigued.

Pitongpu't pitong puting tupa. (Seventy-seven white sheep.)
Pitongpu't pitong butong puting patani. (Seventy-seven white bean seeds.)
Minikaniko ni Moniko ang makina ng manika ni Monika. (Moniko fixed Monika's mechanical doll.)
Butiki, bituka, butika (Lizard, intestine, drugstore)
Bababa ka ba? Bababa din ako! (Are you going down? I am also going down!)
Ang relo ni Leroy Rolex. (Leroy's watch is a Rolex.)
Usong usong isang isang salu-salong nagsisi-usyosohan ang mga aso sa asosasyon sa Ascuzena. (The dogs are busy sharing and talking at a dog association in Ascuzena.)
Kakakanan lang sa kangkungan sa may kakahuyan si Ken Ken habang kumakain ng kakaibang kakanin kahapon. (Yesterday, Ken Ken just turned left to go to the swamp near the woods while eating a weird ricecake.)

I'm sure there are others. If you can think of others, let me know. Oh, and have fun saying these. ;)