For those who come to learn Chinese in China, the tongue twister in Chinese language is an essential practice for better oral Chinese. The most frequently used tongue twister in Chinese language is “四是四，十是十，十四是十四，四十是四十……”. Most Chinese people can say that smoothly, but it may be very difficult for the foreigners. In University of Hamburg in Germany, a Chinese tongue twister race was held to train learners’ language ability.

Before learning to practice the tongue twister, foreign learners should first learn more knowledge about it. It is a traditional language game also known as “急口令”, “吃口令” and “拗口令”. Most foreigners show great interest to it when they study Chinese because it is interesting and has a strong sense of rhythm.

In the tongue twister in Chinese language, the characters and words of the similar pronunciation are gathered together into a sentence with complete and interesting meaning. Those characters and words are very confusing and people are supposed to finish speaking all of them in a breath. Therefore, it is difficult for foreigners who begin to learn Chinese language to say it.

In the scene of the tongue twister game held in the Confucius Institute of Hamburger University in Germany, the presenter arbitrarily picked five people to speak the tongue twister at stage. The Chinese people spoke the tongue twister in German language and the German spoke the Chinese tongue twister. Then, various editions of “四是四，十是十” were produced from those who learn Mandarin. Even though some of them pronounced not so correctly, they won great applause from the audience.

Wula was one of the members who took part in the game. She is one employee of the local company who has never had the experience of learning Mandarin language before but they are greatly interested in the tongue twister. In the interview, she said to the reporter that the four tones in Chinese language are particularly interesting but she never practiced them. She showed the tongue twister just learned to the reporter.

Before the game starting, the local famous German language tongue twister expert Dr. Venter introduced some basic background knowledge about the creation condition of German language tongue twister. Then, Zhang Wei from the Confucius Institute explained the regularity of the four tones in Chinese language for those who learn to speak Chinese. After that, they leaded the audience to learn to say the tongue twister “四是四，十是十”.

When they speak the tongue twister in Chinese language, we felt the tone was very strange but they were all happy for doing it. Even the girls with the age of six or seven were very interested. From this example, we can see clearly that the tongue twister practice is very beneficial for the foreigners to train their Chinese. Therefore, teachers in Mandarin learning courses can apply more to the classroom teaching.

The dean of the Confucius Institute at the University of Hamburg Dr. Carsten Krause has learned Chinese for about 21 years. He holds the opinion that the tongue twister contest is very helpful to raise peoples’ interest to study Mandarin language and improve their language skills. He also said that the players participating in the contest have a certain Chinese language level. Even some of them are just the beginners, they have achieved much progress.

However, the most important point for Chinese language learning is the interest. If they are greatly interested, they are willing to participate in the tongue twister contest. Then they will learn much from the game to improve their Chinese language skills. Therefore, teachers in Chinese language school should take the responsibility of gaining students’ interest.

With China’s increasing influence, Chinese culture becomes more popular in Germany. It has become a fashion to study Chinese for most German people. At present, nine Confucius Institutes have been established and about 80 colleges and institutions have opened up Chinese language courses. Besides, about 300 secondary schools regard Chinese language as an elective course. Nowadays, at least 30,000 people in Germany are learning Chinese language.

As Chinese language is so popular in Germany, we should be glad because it means more people likeChinese culture. So we should do what we can to help them to learn Chinese such as the tongue twister contest.