Three words today: mean: intend to convey or to signify 

men: plural of man and meant: the past participle of to mean

I think spelling confuses people here.  This is a fairly easy lesson today.  

We're going to start with the m sound: mmm  . Lips together, air moves out of your nose.  

We also have an n in all of these words for the  n: nnnn. Tip of the tongue is touching the back  

of the top front teeth. Air is moving out of your  nose. We got those two sounds finished. Okay.

Now for the vowels. We have two different  e vowels. I teach it as the long e: e,  

and the short e: eh. This is how people in  America learn to read with long and short  

vowel sounds. So that's why I'm going to teach  it like this. Plus a lot of people recently  

who are helping their kids learn  how to read, so this will be helpful  

um for you. So to say the long e you're going to  smile. Nice high flat tongue. And then to say the  

short eh, you're going to relax your mouth,  open it, and you are going to be able to see  

the tip of your tongue between your top and  your bottom teeth. Just poking out there.

Let's look at the difference EE Eh EE Eh

Now let's try it in some words we have 

mean mean mean men men men 

mean men mean men

And then for meant, even though it's spelled  with ea which typically we say the long  

e we're going to use the short eh here. Meant.  And all you're going to do is say men and then  

you're going to pull your tongue down and away  for that t sound and let the air puff out.

meant meant meant

So we have mean mean mean 

men men men meant meant meant

And now for a sentence:  

The men were rather mean. Or did I  misinterpret what they meant to say?

So give it a try people are going  to notice the difference. If you  

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check out our products and classes  at Tarle Speech. Thanks so much!