隣の客はよく柿食う客だ (Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki ku kyaku da)
隣の客はよく柿食う客だ (Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki ku kyaku da)
The customer next door is a customer who often eats persimmons
Why Is It Hard?
The repeated kyaku (customer) and kaki (persimmon) sounds sit right next to each other in rapid speech. The shift between the k, ky, and ku sounds while maintaining sentence flow makes this extremely difficult at speed. Japanese native speakers regularly stumble on this one.
History
This twister is one of the oldest documented Japanese hayakuchi kotoba. Persimmons (kaki) were a common autumn fruit in Edo-period Japan, and the image of a neighbour greedily eating them made the phrase both humorous and memorable. It remains a staple in Japanese language classes and speech therapy exercises.
Tips for Saying It
- Break it into two halves: tonari no kyaku wa / yoku kaki ku kyaku da.
- Practise the kyaku-kaki-ku sequence alone before the full sentence.
- Record yourself and listen back – mistakes are easy to miss in real time.
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Find hundreds more on alltonguetwisters.com.
Why This Tongue Twister Is So Hard
Tonari no Kyaku (the guest next door) trips speakers up because of the repeated “k” sound combined with “y” and soft vowels. The full phrase “tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da” (the guest next door is a guest who eats a lot of persimmons) packs multiple “k” clusters into a short sentence.
The transition from “kyaku” to “wa yoku” to “kaki kuu” requires the tongue to reset quickly between voiced and unvoiced sounds. It is a favorite in Japanese elementary school classes for practicing the “k” row of the kana syllabary.
What It Means
The literal translation is: “The guest next door is a guest who frequently eats persimmons.” The image of a neighbor obsessively eating persimmons (kaki) is a bit absurd, which is part of why it sticks in memory. Kaki is also the Japanese word for oyster – leading to intentional double meanings in performance contexts.
Practice Tips
- Focus on the “ky” cluster – it is one sound, not two
- Slow practice: to-na-ri / no / kya-ku / wa / yo-ku / ka-ki / ku-u / kya-ku / da
- Speed up only after you can say it perfectly at slow pace three times
- Try whispering it first, then speaking, then projecting
Difficulty Rating
Difficulty: 3.5/5. Moderately hard. The “k” clustering is the main trap. Most Japanese learners get tripped on “yoku kaki kuu kyaku” – the four-word run at the end where all the k-sounds cluster together.
More tongue twisters to practice: Japanese Tongue Twisters | All Tongue Twisters | Hard Tongue Twisters | Tongue Twisters for Kids