You are loving these heteronym lessons so  we're going to continue with them. Heteronyms  

are words that are spelled the same but they have  different pronunciations and different meanings.

So our words today are perfect, which means  exactly correct, and perfect, to make perfect.  

Some people think these are  challenging because there are slight  

differences there that some people have  difficulty hearing but I'm going to try  

to break it down and make it as  easy as possible for all of you.

So easy breezy first syllable is  the same for both of these words.

per per per

To do that your lips are closed. They open for  the p and then we move to that er. To do this  

I suggest square tense lips. Tip of the tongue is  down, back of the tongue is pulled way high up,  

or the tip of the tongue can be flipped back,  just no touching the teeth. Next, for syllable  

number two, for perfect, we're going to use a  short i sound or a short u sound. This is going  

to be more of a schwa sound which is a relaxed,  unstressed vowel. So let's start with that f,  

to do this, you are going to think about touching  the inside or the outside of your bottom lip  

with your teeth, air moves out. We're going to  add that short e sound. To do this, my tongue  

is high in my mouth but my lips are relaxed. It's  not an e, it's an ih. You can see when I do that,  

all that I do to relax my tongue and let my  tongue pop down is I relax my lips a little bit,  

then we're going to add that k. k. Tip of the  tongue is down back of the tongue is pulled way  

high up. And then move the tip of the tongue to  the back of the top front teeth for that t. t

fict fict fict

Now for fect, all you're going  to do is open your mouth slightly  

wider than you did for that short ih eh

You can see I just dropped my jaw slightly,  

that helps my tongue get into  the right spot . So we have ih eh

fect fect fect

fict fect

Now the last thing that you need to remember for  these two words is that we are going to stress  

syllable number one for perfect and syllable  number two for perfect. To stress a syllable  

it needs to be louder, the vowel needs to be  longer, and it needs to be higher in pitch.  

Just as important, the other syllable needs  to be softer, shorter, and lower in pitch.

So let's put this all together: perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect

perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect

perfect perfect

perfect perfect

perfect perfect perfect

perfect perfect perfect

And now for a sentence:

Perfect pronunciation is not required but  trying to perfect your speaking clarity is.

Give it a try I know people are going to notice  the difference. If you found this helpful  

please share us with your friends, let  us know what you think about this series,  

and try these words in a sentence. And  if you were looking for more help please  

go to totalspeech.com. We have books and  classes and lots of options for you there.

Thanks so much have an amazing weekend!