The Tongue Twister
Pad kid poured curd pulled cod.
Why Is It Hard?
This six-word phrase was identified by MIT speech researchers as one of the hardest tongue twisters in the world. Each word starts with a different consonant cluster: PD, KD, PR, KR, PL, and KD. There is no natural rhythm or rhyme to help your brain keep track, so most people either slow to a crawl or completely stop mid-phrase.
History and Origin
In 2013, Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel and her colleagues at the MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences department presented this phrase at the Acoustical Society of America meeting. They found that test subjects consistently stumbled on it more than any traditional tongue twister. It works by forcing the brain to alternate between similar motor patterns without the rhythmic cues that make classic twisters easier to learn.
Tips for Saying It
Learn each word in isolation before combining them. Say the first two words together ten times, then add the third. Pay attention to the transition between curd and pulled, as that is where most speakers break down. Do not try to say it fast until you can say it perfectly at half speed three times in a row.
Explore more tongue twisters on our site. Try the hard tongue twisters collection or browse tongue twisters for kids. Check out the full English tongue twisters list for more classics.