I just wanted to comment quickly on this part, you guys know how much I love linguistics, and I couldn't resist. First off, someone who learns a language as a second language generally has a better grammatical understanding of that language than native speakers. When we speak our native languages we speak based on what feels natural to us. In general, if a native speaker is trying to decide between two possible grammatical constructions, they will go with the one that they intuitively think is right rather than trying to remember complex grammatical rules. Someone who learns it as a second language does not have the benefit of this intuition and therefore must rely solely on the grammar that they have learned. As a result, if they are well versed in grammar, they will likely speak more 'correct' English than most native speakers.Originally posted by: Rhanfahl
Next, Heretic I completely disagree with you, my Japanese teacher can probably speak better English than you, I know she does in comparison with me. If you tell her to say a sentence in Japanese and then English, you will distinctly hear her accent change from the typical high pitched Japanese Schoolgirl, to a perfect North Eastern United states accent. Another example is any Englishman that can come to America and eventually speak without an accent. I'm reminded of the father in the show "Frazier" who is infact English (which from that show I never would have thought).
"Americans would sound stupid trying to say Japanese words with stressed pronunciation."
No, Americans who know nothing about the language they are speaking would sound stupid saying a lot of foreign words. The solution is to hire actors with the following keyword "Talent"
Now we come to the tricky issue of pronunciation. When you are a baby, you have the potential to hear every sound and to pronounce every sound. Through the process of language learning, you become conditioned to be sensitive to the particular sounds found in your language. You can lose the ability to pronounce sounds that aren't found in your language. So we have a double problem: being able to hear a foreign sound, and then being able to pronounce it. Generally if someone can do the first, they can learn the second, but people have differing levels of skill at this. Ever wonder why Chinese people are prone to mixing up 'r' and 'l' when they speak English? We grew up with these as two different letters, and so the difference is like night and day to us. However for them they grew up with a language where 'r' and 'l' are the same letter. Let me give you an English example. Say the word 'pat' and then the word 'spat' with your hand in front of your mouth. You'll notice that you feel a little puff of air from the p when you say the word 'pat' but not when you say the word 'spat'. This is called aspiration. In English, we don't pay attention to that difference, but in some languages aspirated and unaspirated sounds are separate letters and distinguish between words. I know I would have a hard time at one of those languages because my mind does not recognize the difference in the sound.
Anyways, let me get to my point before this post goes on forever. Some people cannot pronounce things 'correctly' because they cannot hear the difference, not because they are lazy or didn't try. They just can't.
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