@ aegis - sorry, but Elena definitely knows what she talks/writes about. Here, in my country, we are not taught that there is linking in English and we are not aware of that. When you take an English course here, you will learn new vocabulary, grammar, will do some exercise, maybe you will speak ... but nothing about linking or even intonation. They teach you some English that makes you somehow functional at work, at school... That is how it goes on here. (Do not be surprised now, most of the English learners here cannot even pronounce "th" sound correctly. Instead of that they say "t", "d" or I also heard using "s".)

I agree with you that those "secrets" are not secrets. "Secrets" sounds to me like one of those marketing words that are supposed to catch people's attention. ...and it is pretty effective:))

Hi Aegis,

Thank you for your comment. 

A few years ago I attended a workshop run by Marnie Reed and Christina Michaud, both professors at Boston University and both authors of "Sound Concepts: An Integrated Pronunciation course." They started the workshop by doing a dictation where they asked the audience (most of us non-native English speakers and teachers of English) to write down the sentences they were reading. As we were writing them down, it became painfully obvious that even English teachers had troubles understanding simple phrases like, "Tell her I'll meet her at the bank..." which some of them wrote down as "Teller I'll meter at the bank..." and couldn't understand as a result.

One of the presenters then went on to share her experiences of teaching some of the principles I shared in the article to a group of American airforce workers who were non-native English speakers and whose understanding of English, despite rich exposure to it, was still impaired as they weren't able to hear and convey the messages received correctly.

Your comment is legitimate in its context: you're a native speaker of English, so these principles are common sense to you (i.e. they are indeed not "secrets"). It would be a mistake however to believe that greater exposure to the native English speech would by itself help, say, non-native speakers with the Pre-Intermediate level of English, who tend to pronounce every word the same, hear the English speech as it is - linked and altered. From my 10+ year experience of accent training, particularly for non-native simultaneous translators, I can assure you that students' fluency and listening comprehension improve significantly once they're introduced to these and other connected speech principles.

The word "secret" is indeed used for marketing purposes - to catch people's attention. However, if you look at the definitions of the word you'll find that it doesn't always mean "something hidden from everyone." When you read articles on "secrets of happiness" you realize that there's usually nothing secret about the information described, most likely it's something that everyone already knows. Incidentally, one of the following definitions of the word "secret" used by dictionary.com is

"a method, formula, plan, etc., known only to the initiated or the few:

the secret of happiness; a trade secret."

These 3 principles are apparent to everyone and they do exist in a number of languages, however not too many people can summarize them to show them as patterns. If somebody were to ask me today about the linking principles in Russian (my mother tongue) I would have no idea - I mean, I know they are there, but I wouldn't be able to summarize them in such a way that will help a non-native speaker understand spoken Russian better. But I'm sure if I were to read somebody's article with a list of principles/secrets/rules/concepts I'd say, "sure, that's exactly what I would have said."

Thank you Elena! It's really! I like read, but I have many problems in conversations! Exit only one.... I will be make conversation and will hear music and watch TV!))) 

Thank you per secrets in English!)

I really enjoyed reading this article! Sadly, most learners come to me without having been taught real, fluent pronunciation in their previous courses, which is why I usually make this a top priority when I work with a new student. In my experience, the improvements in both speaking and listening are definitely dramatic, and I highly recommend this article for serious language learners. The three "secrets" will definitely get you off to a good start.