How do you notice "foreign accents" ?

[Masfer]

Hi everybody!
Since I am here in Denmark, I pay attention to the way people talk English (as most of us are not native) and I have come up with some dictation errors when speaking:

• Spanish people: we speak in general very bad compared to the nordic people. The most common errors are:
  - We tend to pronounce the r like in Spanish, so we sometimes say "yourrr","wherrre", "carrrr" ...
  - We put an [e] sound (the same sound like in "pen") before all the words that start with "s" and are followed by a consonant, so we say "eSpanish", "eStar", "eSpace" ....
  - We pronounce v and b sounds in exactly the same way. That's obviously because we make no difference in Spanish between these sounds :?
  
• French people: the main (and big) problem frenchs have is the way the pronounce the r. Some people pronounce it ike in French and it sounds quite strange. I know you can imagine this sound 8)
  
• Italian people: There's something strange with the t and l sounds but I can exactly say what's wrong with them. I suppose they pronounce it in the "italian way"

What do you think about this? Do you find any other way to recognize "foreign accents"?

I have to admit that sometimes I pronounce the r sound stronger than usual because I think the other person I am talking to is not going to understand me if I don't pronounce it that way. I guess this is because in Spanish we pronounce all the letters Do you think it's better to exagerate the r sound than just pronounce it very "soft"?

Looking forward to reading your answers!

(Would it have been correct to write: "Looking forward for your answers?")

[Red5]

I'll let someone else answer the rest of your post, but...

(Would it have been correct to write: "Looking forward for your answers?")

I would have written:

"Looking forward to your answers" or "Looking forward to your comments".

[Tdol]

French speakers may pronounce 'th' as 'z'.

[Masfer]

French speakers may pronounce 'th' as 'z'.

I think 'th' may be pronounced like 'z'. For example:
think has this sound: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/assets/symbols/pth.gif
this is not pronounced like 'z' but like this: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/assets/symbols/pthe.gif

Thanks for your anwers! :D

[Masfer]

I've had second thoughts about my last post. Actually it's a little mistake. By this sentence

I think 'th' may be pronounced like 'z'

I meant that 'th' sounds like 'z' but that's in Spanish, not in English. Sorry, but sometimes my Spanish interferes with my English.

ByE!

[Tdol]

Zat's no problem.

[Masfer]

Zank you!

[Tdol]

Japanese speakers make 'creative' use of rising and falling stress, so they can sound displeased when trying to show pleasure.

[comexch]

Accents can be produced by things other than pronunciation of individual sounds. For example, Spanish speakers often nasalize (air through nose) over longer expanses of speech than do English speakers (unless you are from some areas of the South in the US Russians speak more in the middle of the mouth at the palate and use a back and down tongue gesture that traps sound in the throat. Finns vary intonation little and clench the jaw in a way that Americans can mistake for anger.

[Tdol]

I have, however, come accross sevral Finns who could pass for native speakers.