Non-native pronunciations of English result from speakers of any language (other than English) imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English, either by transferring the phonological rules from their mother tongue into their English speech ("interference") or by implementing strategies similar to those used in primary language acquisition. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning One hotly debated issue is whether the biological contribution includes capacities specific to language acquisition often referred to as Universal grammar. ^[1] They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the speaker's first language. ^[2] The age at which speakers begin to immerse themselves into a language (such as English) is linked to the degree in which native speakers are able to detect a non-native accent; the exact nature of the link is disputed amongst scholars and may be affected by "neurological plasticity, cognitive development, motivation, psychosocial states, formal instruction, language learning aptitude," and the usage of their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Neuroplasticity (variously referred to as brain plasticity, cortical plasticity or cortical re-mapping) refers to the changes that occur in The Theory of Cognitive Development (one of the most historically influential theories was developed by Jean Piaget, a Swiss Philosopher (1896–1980 Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact ^[3] More transparently, differing phonological distinctions between a speaker's first language and English create a tendency to neutralize such distinctions in English^[4] and differences in the inventory or distribution of sounds may cause substitutions of native sounds in the place of difficult English sounds and/or simple deletion. ^[5] This is more common when the distinction is subtle between English sounds or between a sound of English and of a speaker's primary language; nevertheless, there is no evidence to suggest that a simple absence of a sound or sequence in one language's phonological inventory makes it difficult to learn. ^[6]

In addition, the grammar differences (for example the differences in tense, number, gender, etc. Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong ) in different languages often lead to grammatical mistakes. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them

The English dialect in which second language learners are exposed to may also be a factor. In some places that were formerly under British rule, such as India, Hong Kong and Malaysia the English language remains a mandatory subject in the schools and the accents of such students show influences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from British English. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Hong Kong ( officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located on China 's south coast on the Pearl River Delta, and borders For the biogeographical region see Malesia Malaysia (məˈleɪʒə or /məˈleɪziə/ is a country that consists of thirteen states and

Such characteristics may be transmitted to the children of bilinguals, who will then exhibit a number of the same characteristics even if they are monolingual. ^[7]

Non-native accents by region in alphabetical order:

Contents 1 Arabic 2 Chinese 3 German 4 Hebrew 5 Hungarian 6 Italian 7 Japanese 8 Russian 9 Spanish 10 Vietnamese 11 See also 12 References 13 Bibliography 14 Further reading 15 External links

Arabic

• Speakers tend to speak with a rhotic accent and pronounce /r/ as a flap or trill. ^[8]

Chinese

• Because Chinese lacks any overt number category, speakers of Chinese frequently combine a plural subject with a singular verb or vice versa. ^[9]

German

• Speakers may not velarize /l/ in coda positions as native speakers do. Velarization is a Secondary articulation of Consonants by which the back of the Tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the In Phonology, a syllable coda comprises the Consonant sounds of a Syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a Vowel ^[10]

See also: German phonology

Hebrew

• The most common Hebrew dialect has only five vowels^[11][12] (though some distinguish between an additional four, normally pronounced the same) and generally does not use diphthongs (except for foreign borrowings); Hebrew speakers may therefore mispronounce some of the English vowels. German phonology describes the Phonology of Standard German. Since German is a Pluricentric language, there are a number of different pronunciations In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with
• The lack of discrimination in Hebrew between short and long vowels makes correctly pronouncing English words such as hit/heat and tap/top difficult. ^[12]
• Dental fricatives–/ð/ (as in "the") and [θ] (as in "think") –are often mispronounced;^[12] the former as [d], [z], or [v] and the latter as [t], [s], or [f].
• Rhotic accent. The Hebrew /r/ is a voiced uvular fricative (IPA: [ʁ]) in the General Israeli accent; speakers may use this pronunciation in English for words with /r/. The voiced uvular fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that
• Hebrew speakers may confuse /w/ and /v/. ^[12]
• In Hebrew, word stress is usually on the last (ultimate) or penultimate syllable of a word; speakers may carry their stress system into English, which has a much more varied stress system. ^[12] Hebrew speakers may also use Hebrew intonation patterns which mark them as foreign speakers of English. ^[12]

See also: Hebrew phonology

Hungarian

• The dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ may be replaced by [s̻] and [d̪]^[13]

See also: Hungarian phonology

Italian

See also: Italian phonology

A study on Italian children's pronunciation of English revealed the following characteristics:^[14]

• Tendency to replace the English high lax vowels /ɪ/ /ʊ/ with [i] [u] (ex: "fill" and "feel", "put" "poot" are homophones), since Italian doesn't have these vowels. Hebrew Phonology must take into account that the Hebrew language has been used primarily for liturgical, literary and scholarly purposes for most of the This article deals with the Phonology and the Phonetics of the Hungarian language. See also Italian language For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Italian for Wikipedia articles see HelpIPA chart for Italian. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy.
• Tendency to replace /ŋ/ with [ŋg] ("singer" rhymes with "finger") or as [n] (combined with the above tendency makes the words "king" and "keen" homophones) because Italian [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before velar stops.
• Tendency to replace word-initial /sm/ with [zm], e. g. small [zmɔl].
• Tendency to replace /ʌ/ with [a] so that mother is pronounced [ˈmadər] or [ˈmaðər].
• Italian does not have dental fricatives:
  • Voiceless /θ/ may be replaced with a dental [t̪] or with [f].
  • Voiced /ð/ may become a dental [d̪].
• Since /t/ and /d/ are typically pronounced as dental stops anyway, words like there and dare can become homophones.
• /æ/ is replaced with [ɛ], so that bag sounds like beg [bɛg].
• Tendency to pronounce /p t k/ as unaspirated stops.
• Schwa [ə] does not exist in Italian; speakers tend to give the written vowel its full pronunciation, e. g. lemon [ˈlɛmɒn], television [tɛleˈviʒɒn], parrot [ˈpærot], intelligent [inˈtɛlidʒɛnt], water [ˈwɔtɛr], sugar [ˈʃugar].
• Italian speakers may pronounce consonant-final English words with a strong vocalic offset, especially in isolated words, e. g. dog [dɒgᵊ]. This has led to the stereotype of Italians adding [ə] to the ends of English words.
• Tendency to pronounce /r/ as a trill [r] rather than the English approximant /ɹ/, e. In Phonetics, a trill is a Consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the Place of articulation. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants g. parrot [ˈpærot].

In addition, Italians learning English have a tendency to pronounce words as they are spelled, so that walk is [wɒlk], guide is [gwid], and boiled is [ˈbɔɪlɛd]. This is also true for loanwords borrowed from English as water, which is pronounced as [vatɛr] instead of [ˈwɔːtə]. Related to this is the fact that many Italians produce /r/ wherever it is spelled (e. g. star [star]), resulting in a rhotic accent, even when the dialect of English they are learning is nonrhotic. English pronunciation is divided into two main accent groups the rhotic (ˈroʊtɪk and non-rhotic, depending on when the sound typically represented Consonants written double may be pronounced as geminates, e. In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. g. Italians pronounce apple with a longer [p] sound than English speakers do.

Japanese

• Speakers tend to confuse /l/ and /r/ both in perception and production,^[15] since the Japanese language does not make such a distinction. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities The closest Japanese phoneme to either of these is /ɺ/ (see Japanese speakers learning r and l for more information)

Russian

See also: Russian phonology

• There is no /w/ in Russian; speakers typically substitute [v] ^[16]
• Russian does not have the dental fricatives [θ] and [ð], so they may be replaced with alveolar fricatives or dental stops. Japanese has only one Liquid consonant, a lateral flap /ɺ/ while English has an Alveolar lateral approximant /l/ and an alveolar See also Russian language For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Russian for Wikipedia articles see HelpIPA for Russian This article discusses Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
• Alveolar consonants /s/ /d/ /t/ /n/ may be pronounced as dental. Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and
• Russian has five or six vowels phonemes, some vowels not in their native inventories.
  • /ɛ/ and /æ/ are pronounced as the former. E. g. “man” and “men” are pronounced [mɛn].
  • The diphthongs /aɪ/, /eɪ/, and /ɔɪ/ sound with the consonant [j] sound instead of the short /ɪ/. E. g. “high” sounds like [haj], rather than [haɪ].

Spanish

See also: Spanglish and Spanish phonology

• Since Spanish does not make voicing contrasts between its fricatives (and its one affricate), speakers may neutralize contrasts between /s/ and /z/; likewise, fricatives may assimilate the voicing of a following consonant. Spanglish espanglish, espaninglish, el Spanish broken, ingléspañol, ingleñol For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Spanish for Wikipedia articles see HelpIPA chart for Spanish. ^[17]
• Speakers tend to merge /tʃ/ with /ʃ/, and /dʒ/ and /ʒ/ with /j/. ^[18]
• /j/ and /w/ often have a fluctuating degree of closure. ^[19]
• For the most part (especially in colloquial speech), Spanish allows only five (or six) word-final consonants: /s/, /n/, /ɾ/, /l/ and /d/ (plus /θ/ in Northern Peninsular Spanish); speakers may omit word-final consonants other than these. Castilian Spanish (español septentrional is a term related to the Spanish language but whose exact meaning can vary even in that language ^[20]
• In Spanish, /s/ must immediately precede or follow a vowel; often a word beginning with [s] + consonant will obtain an epenthetic vowel (typically [e]) to make stomp pronounced as [esˈtɑmp] rather than [stɑmp]. ^[21]
• In Spanish, a voiceless dental fricative /θ/ phoneme exists only in the Northern Peninsular dialect; where this sound appears in English, speakers of other Spanish dialects substitute /t/, /s/ or /f/ for it. The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic ^[22]
• Speakers tend to merge /ð/ and /d/, pronouncing both as voiced dental plosive unless they occur in intervocalic position, in which case they are pronounced as [ð]. The voiced dental plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that ^[23] A similar process occurs with /v/ and /b/. ^[24]
• The three nasal phonemes of Spanish neutralize in coda-position; speakers may invariably pronounce nasal consonants as homorganic to a following consonant; if word-final (as in welcome) common realizations include [n], deletion with nasalization of the preceding vowel, or [ŋ]. ^[25]

Vietnamese

See also: Vietnamese phonology

Note: There are two main dialects in Vietnamese, a northern one centered around Hanoi and a southern one centered around Ho Chi Minh City. This article is a technical description the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including Phonetics and Phonology. Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam) Hanoi ( Vietnamese: Hà Nội Hán Tự: 河[[wikt 内|内]], estimated population 3398889 (2007, is the Capital of Vietnam

• Speakers may not produce final consonants since there are fewer final consonants in Vietnamese and those that do exist differ in their phonetic quality:^[26]
  • Final /b/ is likely to be confused with /p/
  • Final /d/ is likely to be confused with /t/
  • Final /f/ is likely to be confused with /p/
  • Final /v/ is likely to be confused with /b/ or /p/
  • Final /s/ is likely to be confused with /ʃ/ or simply omitted
  • Final /ʃ/ is likely to be omitted
  • Final /z/ is likely to be confused with /ʃ/ or /s/
  • Final /tʃ/ is likely to be confused with /ʃ/
  • Final /l/ is likely to be confused with /n/
• Speakers also have difficulty with English consonant clusters,^[27] with segments being omitted or epinthetic vowels being inserted. In Phonology, epenthesis (/əˈpɛnθəsɪs/ Ancient Greek ἐπένθεσις - epenthesis from epi "on" + en "in" ^[28]
• Speakers may not aspirate initial /t/ and /k/, making (American) listeners perceive them as /d/ and /g/ respectively. ^[29]
• Speakers often have difficulty with the following phonemes:^[30]
  • /θ/, which is confused with /t/ or /s/
  • /ð/, which is confused with /d/ or /z/
  • /p/, which is confused with /b/
  • /g/, which is confused with /k/
  • /dʒ/, which is confused with /z/
  • /ʒ/, which is confused with /z/ or /dʒ/
  • /s/, which is confused with /ʃ/
  • /tɹ/, which is confused with /dʒ/, /tʃ/ or /t/
  • /v/, which is confused with /j/
  • /ɪ/, which is confused with /i/
  • /ʊ/, which is confused with /u/ or /ʌ/
  • /ɛ/, which is confused with /æ/
  • /æ/, which is confused with /ɛ/ or /ɑ/
• Vietnamese is a tonal language and speakers may try to use the Vietnamese tonal system or use a monotone with English words. They may also associate tones onto the intonational pattern of a sentence and becoming confused with such inflectional changes. ^[31]

See also

• Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages
• Pronunciation of English th
• Non-native speech database
• Accent reduction

References

Bibliography

• Ravid, Dorit (1995), "Language Change in Child and Adult Hebrew: A Psycholinguistic Perspective", Oxford University Press, <http://books.google.com/books?id=Jm2XFv0cFzQC&pg=PA37&dq=5+vowels+in+Hebrew&sig=81IoNTpvOHYxkQCqKDOYoeN3XK0>
• Hwa-Froelich, Deborah; Barbara W Hodson & Harold T Edwards (2003), "Characteristics of Vietnamese Phonology", American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 11: 264-273
• Goldstein, Brian; Leah Fabiano & Patricia Swasey Washington (2005), "Phonological Skills in Predominantly English-Speaking, Predominantly Spanish-Speaking, and Spanish–English Bilingual Children", Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 36: 201-218
• Goto, Hiromu (1971), "Auditory perception by normal Japanese adults of the sounds "l" and "r""", Neuropsychologia 9: 317-323
• Jeffers, Robert J. The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English either by transferring & Ilse Lehiste (1979), Principles and Methods for Historical Linguistics, MIT press, ISBN 0262600110
• Khattab, Ghada (2002), "/r/ production in English and Arabic bilingual and monolingual speakers", in Nelson, Diane, Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics, vol. 9, 91-129
• MacDonald, Marguerite (1989), "The influence of Spanish phonology on the English spoken by United States Hispanics", written at Washington, DC, in Bjarkman, Peter & Robert Hammond, American Spanish pronunciation: Theoretical and applied perspectives], Georgetown University Press, 215–236
• Munro, Miles & Virginia Mann (2005), "Age of immersion as a predictor of foreign accent", Applied Psycholinguistics 26: 311-341
• Nádasdy, Ádám (2006), written at Budapest, Background to English Pronunciation, Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, ISBN 9631957918
• Shoebottom, Paul (2007), "The differences between English and Hebrew", Frankfurt International School, <http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/hebrew.htm>
• Thompson, Irene (1991), "Foreign Accents Revisited: The English Pronunciation of Russian Immigrants", Language Learning 41 (2): 177–204, DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1991.tb00683.x, <http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1991.tb00683.x>

Further reading

• Wiik, K. The Frankfurt International School (FIS is an English-language day school located in Oberursel, near Frankfurt am Main Germany. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document. (1965). Finnish and English Vowels: A comparison with special reference to the learning problems met by native speakers of Finnish learning English. Annales Universitatis Turkuensis.  

External links

• A site collecting recordings of people from different areas reading the same paragraph (most recordings also have an IPA transcription)
• International Dialects of English Archive
• Articles, Determiners, and Quantifiers

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