What is linking and how it helps your English sound more natural

Non-native English speakers have complained that native speakers speak too fast and that they “eat their words.” Basically, what non-native English speakers are saying is that they find native speakers hard to understand. On the other hand, it has been observed that non-native English speakers tend to speak choppy, and sometimes they speak backwards. The short explanation is that non-native English speakers speak choppy because they don’t use linking, and native speakers seem to speak fast because they use linking. It all goes back to linking.

As far as non-native English speakers speaking backwards, there’s a likelihood that they are translating from their native tongue word for word. If their native tongue uses a different word order than English, then they are naturally going against the proper order of English words. Consider the following example. My native tongue is Cebuano. It follows a verb-subject order. English follows a subject-verb order. If I want to translate, “Nagkaon ko” word for word into English, it will come out as, “Eating I.” That’s speaking backwards.

Now back to linking. Linking is connecting one word to the next word. Linking is not lazy talk. Linking, along with word stress and sentence stress, contributes to what is known as the rhythm of spoken English. Have you ever observed someone trying to emulate a foreign accent? Without using actual words, one can emulate a foreign accent by simply imitating the manner of articulation, intonation and phrasing. Rhythm is the natural melody of a language. If you are speaking English words with the melody of a different language, your English isn’t going to sound natural and you are going to be hard to understand. 

There’s another important thing about linking. Words that are linked sound different than words that are uttered individually. So if you don’t understand how native speakers apply linking to their speech, you will have a hard time recognizing what words were actually spoken. There are different rules or patterns when it comes to linking. You can’t simply link everything in the exact same way. Being aware of the observable patterns will help you link your words naturally, as well as help your listening comprehension greatly.