If you’ve been studying American English pronunciation you’re probably aware of  linking (or liaisons).

✰Linking refers to the way American English speakers connect words together.✰

American English speakers do not speak word by word. That type of speech sounds very choppy and unnatural to us! ☹

So, spoken English has linking between words….this makes our speech sound smooth!

But, did you know that we also have linking within words? This is an advanced skill that I teach the people in my accent reduction coaching course.

Word internal linking occurs when there are 2 vowel sounds inside a word. When this happens we like to  insert a /y/ or /w/ glide  to connect the sounds.

They /y/ insertion

The /y/ insertion is very common.  Here are a few examples:

• reunion⟺ reʸunion
• client ⟺ cliʸent
• diet ⟺ diʸet

This is sometimes referred to as the invisible /y/.

The /w/ insertion

You will hear a /w/ insertion is these words:

• cooperate ⟺ coʷoperate
• graduate ⟺ graduʷate
• coersion ⟺ coʷersion

If you want your speech to sound smooth and natural, you must employ linking when you speak American English!

I teach my accent reduction coaching clients how to speak English with a smooth and natural melody in my Skype accent reduction course.

This is a critical skill for Arabic, Chinese and Japanese speakers of English.

Take a look at all you will learn when you sign up for ☛ individual accent coaching.