Are you a fan of tongue twisters?  Here’s a well-known French one that is also an example of "trompe-oreilles":

Tonton, le thé de ta tatie t’a-t-il oté ta toux ?
-Oui, le thé de ma tatie m’a oté ma toux !

"Uncle, did your auntie’s tea get rid of your cough?"
"Yes, my auntie’s tea got rid of my cough."

Listen to a recording of Tonton le thé…

Listen to a slow and fast version of "Tonton le thé…" here.

Monique wrote about it from France:

"Now I must say that when we said it as children, it wasn’t a tongue twister like:

"Les chaussettes de l’archi-duchesse sont-elles sèches ou archi-sèches?"
(The socks of the archduchess, are they dry or ultra-dry?)

"Tonton le thé…" was some sort of mysterious sentence you had to say as fast as you could so that the other kids couldn’t split it up into words. This type of tongue twister is called a ‘trompe-oreilles’ in French.  It can almost sound like a foreign language or give the impression you’re saying something different from what you’re really saying. 

The hope as a kid was that the others couldn’t split it up into words and understand it. You could feel so much smarter… till they got it!"

I don’t think we have an equivalent to trompe-oreilles in English.  We just say tongue twister.  Can anyone else out there think of an English term for it?

Thanks for sharing with us Monique!

Mama Lisa

Monique Palomares works with us on the French and Spanish versions of Mama Lisa’s World.