So, one day one of my students asked me if I knew any tongue-twisters in English. Of course, I know the standard ones about Peter Piper (who supposedly picked a pack of pickled peppers, though there are no eyewitnesses to verify this claim) and Sally selling seashells (although it always seemed to me that the sea shore was the least profitable place for one to be selling them... you don't sell wild berries in a berry field [sorry, berries on the brain again]), but it seems to me that these aren't really difficult, at least for Russians, who have no problems minding their "p"s and "s"esses. So, inspired by an episode of 30 Rock I had seen, I decided to see if I couldn't craft my own tongue-twister around the impossibly ugly phrase "rural juror". So, here you have it, the fruit of my labor (loins?), which did indeed prove nearly impossible for my students -- particular those who've retained the Slavonic habit of rrrolling their "r"s -- along with my Russian translation, which my students found particularly hilarious:
A lurking rural juror lured and murdered a puerile Ural burger server and a nursing neural surgeon out of pure furor at a urinal in suburban Burma.
Скрывающийся сельский присяжный поманил и убил ребяческого уральского человека, приносящего гамбургеры и нянчащего неврологического хирурга от чистого фурора в писсуаре в пригороде Бурмы.
Say that five time fast (in both languages, if possible)! [I can just imagine Mike trying to read the Cyrillic -- "ckpabibayow, backwards "N", backwards "N" with a squiggly, ca, backwards "R"]
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