Betty Botter bought some butter, but the butter was bitter
The slip pointB and T alternate in every word. "Botter bought" and "butter bitter" change only the vowel.
- Half speed
- Talking speed
- Fast
Say the line at half speed. 0 of 3 clean runs.
Pick a level and the sound you trip on, then press Generate. Every line comes with a note on the exact spot where speakers slip, plus a tracker for the classic drill: three clean runs at half speed, three at talking speed, three fast.
Betty Botter bought some butter, but the butter was bitter
The slip pointB and T alternate in every word. "Botter bought" and "butter bitter" change only the vowel.
Say the line at half speed. 0 of 3 clean runs.
Reading a twister once proves nothing. The slip shows up on the second or third pass, when your mouth starts guessing the next word. The first card on this page, "Betty Botter bought some butter, but the butter was bitter", is a good line to learn the routine on.
Five lines this way take about five minutes, a good length for a warm-up before a call, a class, or a recording.
Each sound filter targets one spot in the mouth. Pick the one where your speech goes wrong, not the one where you already sound fine.
| Sound | What your mouth does | Who picks this one |
|---|---|---|
| S and SH | Tongue tip near the ridge behind the top teeth for S, pulled back with rounded lips for SH | Anyone with a slushy S, or an S whistling on a microphone |
| R | Tongue pulled back, lips slightly rounded, tip touching nothing | Kids practicing R, speakers of Japanese or Korean, where R and L share one sound |
| L | Tongue tip pressed on the ridge, air flowing around the sides | The same group as R. Alternate the two round by round. |
| TH | Tongue tip between the teeth, air flowing out over the top | Speakers of French, German, Russian, Hindi, or Cantonese, where TH turns into S, Z, T, D, or F |
| P and B | Both lips close, then release a burst of air | Podcasters fighting mic pops, singers working on clean word starts |
| Mixed | Fast switches between the front and back of the mouth | Actors and presenters warming up before a take |
"Purple paper people"
Short, one repeated sound. Fine for a seven-year-old, or for your own voice at 7 a.m.
"Toy boat, toy boat, toy boat"
Easy once, hard on repeat. Medium lines punish speed more than spelling.
"A proper copper coffee pot"
P, K, and F swap inside four words. Hard lines move the tongue between three or more spots.
"Pad kid poured curd pulled cod"
Built for a speech-error study, not for fun. Expert lines break trained actors at talking speed.
Two Mixed lines at Hard before a cold read loosen the jaw faster than humming. "Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather" is the drama school standard.
Run a TH round on Monday, R and L on Wednesday. Put the line on the board, have students read in pairs, and let the partner press Slipped.
Read three P and B lines into your mic before recording. Every pop you hear tells you to back off the mic or angle the pop filter.
Copy the line into a notes app, then practice the line with your child at the kitchen table for two minutes a day.
Two lines compete for the title, and both sit at Expert. "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" was listed by Guinness World Records as the hardest in English. "Pad kid poured curd pulled cod" came out of a 2013 MIT speech-error study, where some volunteers stopped talking mid-line when asked to repeat the line fast.
No. Twisters are practice material. A twister gives a child or adult extra reps on a sound they already produce correctly in single words. A lisp, an R error past age eight, or stuttering needs an assessment from a speech-language pathologist, who picks drills to match the exact error.
Level, sound, and length together narrow the list fast. Easy lines are short by design, so Easy plus Long matches nothing. Set Length back to Any and press Generate again. Every level and sound pair has lines of its own.
Start at half your talking speed. Move up only after three clean runs in a row, and drop back one speed after any slip. The tracker on the card keeps count for you. Normal conversation runs around 150 words per minute, so a clean Expert line at full talking speed is a strong result for anyone.
Easy lines suit early readers, since each one repeats one sound and stays short. Read the line to the child first, then read the line together, then let the child try alone. Stop the round once the game stops being fun.
Not during one visit. The page remembers every line shown since you arrived and skips those. Once every line matching your filters has appeared, the memory clears and repeats start. Reloading the page clears the memory too.
Yes. Each press of Generate asks the Toolexe server for a line. For a classroom with patchy Wi-Fi, press Copy line on the twisters you want before the lesson and paste them into your notes.