Page 52 - Modul - PRONUNCIATION - Berbasis Media-PERCOBAAN FLIPBOOK HTML- VERSI 2 16 September

UNIT IX: LINKING

Activity I: Study the Linking

Linking is a way of joining the pronunciation of two words so that they are easy to
say and flow together smoothly. In English there are different ways that this

happens (www.bbc.co.uk)

When people speak naturally, they do not pronounce a word, and stop, then say the

next word in the sentence. But they speak full complete sentence. Fluent speech
flows with a rhythm and the words bump into each other. To make speech flow

smoothly the way we pronounce the end and beginning of some words can change

depending on the sounds at the beginning and end of those words. Linking is very
important in English. If we recognize and use linking, we will understand other

people more easily and other people will understand us more easily

There are basically two main types of linking:

• consonant ⇔ vowel
We link words ending with a consonant sound to words beginning with a vowel
sound

• vowel ⇔ vowel
We link words ending with a vowel sound to words beginning with a vowel sound

Linking is the merging of multiple words together until they sound as if they are only
one word. Native speakers of English all do this naturally. Linking is an advanced

topic for non-native speakers, but learning to correctly link words can result in
significantly more fluid and fluent sounding English speech. Failing to link words

naturally results in spoken English which may have awkward pauses, extra,
unnecessary sounds, and which will sound very foreign to native speakers.

51 | MODUL PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE