Does linking words make English harder to understand?

For a listener used to careful speech, yes, briefly: linking removes silence that was doing some of the work of separating words. That is a listening problem and it fades with exposure. For your own speech the risk is smaller. A link that moves a consonant makes a word easier to say and no harder to hear, because the consonant is still there, only in a new position. A link that deletes it is not linking at all.

The test is whether a listener can still identify the words.

If you are not sure whether a link has cost you a word, do not ask a listener if it sounded natural; ask them to write the phrase down. A transcription is a harder test than an opinion, and it tells you which word was lost: if they write a different word at the join, a consonant was swallowed rather than moved. The repair is the one people use in real conversation, including native speakers: stop, say the lost word on its own, and continue from the join. Repeating one word is unremarkable; leaving a listener with the wrong word is what forces the whole sentence to be said again.

Linking Words When You Speak English: Natural Rhythm Without Slowing Down →