Why can't foreigners say "it"?

You know instantly someone is a foreigner when they say something like, "Eet eece wreetone" instead of "It is written".

In most Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, the "I" has an "ee" sound. the schwa "i" doesn't exist in their languages, its an English thing. Notice the Germans and Scandinavians don't have this problem. Most Arabs and Slavs learn French first, so by the time they come to English its something they cannot get over.
Are you a little slow, OP? Research the concept of "accents (speech)".
Ok, so they don't grow up with the sound. Once they are told the correct way to say it in English, what's the problem? They just have to mimic the sound.
I find it shocking that foreign language speakers don't pronounce English correctly. SHOCKING!!!
How many languages do you speak, OP? How's your pronunciation in your second, third, and fourth languages?
thought%20so%20...
In Greek, the "i" is also pronounced as "ee." In fact, there are three letters in the alphabet pronounced as "ee." The short "i" sound doesn't exist.
Yes, all "foreigners" (couldn't you just have said "non-native English speakers?) have the same accent in English.
As long as they speak blow job, it's all good
Sandusky
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Sheet!
R3, It isn't always easy to mimic someone make a sound that you've never encountered before or never had to utter. We take it for granted how to make the short i sound, but people not accustomed to this sound wouldn't know where to position their tongue in their mouth or how long to hold the vowel. These are things taught in accent reduction class, but most English language learners don't go to accent reduction class and only learn the rudimentary skills.
The OP is an untraveled flyover obesitron. Ignore it.
My native language has so many different vowels. Many of them would sound the same to you, OP. But the differences of these vowels have nothing to do with how long it is held...
In college, my Hebrew prof told us that most Israelis commencing their English studies can't hear the difference between "man" and "men." I've been speaking Italian for years and still can't perfectly pronounce "gli"--it's such an odd rolling of the tongue mid-sound. I've heard it a thousand times, said it a thousand times, but it's still not perfect.
You know instantly that OP is a moron.
I live in a foreign country. I have been here for half of my life. I speak the language fluently but I still have a bit of an American accent. When I speak I can even hear that I am not pronouncing words exactly like a native. But it's something you have little control over. The muscles of your mouth and tongue are formed and trained at a young age... unless you go to a speech therapist and work on it, it's not going to change.
I hope this is a joke post. Otherwise, OP is unbelievably ignorant. The sound in 'it' (which is NOT a schwa, R2 - a schwa is the sound of the 'a' in 'hospital') doesn't exist in many languages. Most people are unable to 'just mimic' sounds when they reach adulthood, which is why foreign accents exist. In fact, many people are unable to HEAR the sound correctly, let alone reproduce it. Their brain just associates it with a similar sound in their own language, hence 'eat' for 'it'. If you actually spoke any foreign languages, OP, you'd know that pronouncing words like a native is difficult to impossible, unless you learned that language in childhood.
OP, I'm Spanish and I hardly knew if... not, I don't never met an English-speaker native person who can speak Spanish without no English accent. I know people who have spent years here, married to Spanish people and they sound English. I'm guessing that you are not able to do the correct R rolling sound of Spanish. Also English speakers sound always foreign because of their aspirated consonants /p t k/. The problem is that you grow up with a language and your mouth and how do you have that muscle trained to articulate a sound has grown with you, and that's very difficult to change. And that's if you can perceive the difference sound in the other language, because what are different letters and phonemes in one language in another that different sounds represent the same letters and phonemes because are heard and understood as allophones, That's is one of the multiple ways to pronounce a single phoneme of that language.
For the same reason, OP, that you, as an English speaker, might find it very difficult to roll your r's, put your emphasis on the correct syllable to form a formal second person verb tense (or even master the highly politic distinction between the formal and the familiar), or have forgotten that there was in your language once such a thing as a proficient use of the subjunctive. When you are accustomed to not using something or to misuse or disuse something, it is particularly challenging to change the well trodden pattern you regularly use. Generally, merely being told that you are not getting it right is not enough to alter your behavior.
Israeli-born radio host Aaron Klein can't pronounce eight. He says et et et when giving the toll-free number.
Have always heard people from Britian pronounce 'a' as 'ah." Co-worker from London says PLA-zuh instead of PLAH-zuh and NAT-zee for NOT-zee. Is this regional or lack of education?
r7, Archie Bunker told Edith there was no reason to go to Europe "because there's nothin' but a bunch of foreigners there."
This thread is proof that ignorant, fatass flyover rubes rule Datalounge.
In ten years of reading datalounge, I am stunned to find out that there are still new candidates for the title of "Dumbest Thread Ever."
Seriously.%20Astonishingly%20stupid.
Op is an eedeeot.
foreigner
The "th" sound is also not used in some other languages, notably French. Spanish and the rolled r is almost impossible for me. Hardest word: Refrigerador. It's about three different r sounds in there. I feel like Hebrew would kill my throat.
The french say "Dark Vader" instead of Darth Vader because of that reason.
I'm quite certain OP speaks French with a perfect Tours accent.
R21, could you be any more ignorant? It's called an ACCENT. The British pronunciation of 'plaza' is simply DIFFERENT. Not more correct and not less correct than the American pronunciation. Most of the Americans I've met seem to think their pronunciation is the correct pronunciation and everyone else 'has an accent'. It makes them sound like sheltered morons. Everyone in the world has some sort of accent.
R21 also needs to explain what the hell a "NOT-zee" is. It does not correspond to any known word in the English language.
Why can't the English just learn to speak American properly before they get here? They must not teach anything in grade school over there.
R21