Why is it so hard to talk?

[DrFaroohk]

I was wondering why is it so hard for people to properly learn foreign languages, and especially not just the words but the ACCENT. I'm not taking jabs at foreigners, just wondering...why? Is it laziness? Is it because English is harder? Is it a cultural identity thing?

I know people who've spent 20 years in this country, living as a full of resident, and still can barely spit out a sentence. But I also know some people who've got accents down. Is it like this in other countries too? Do French people living in Germany also barely speak the language? What about Russians living in China? Do they manage it or is it still like they have a mouthful of food?

[the_std]

It is, essentially, because your brain forms the relationship between 'words/letters' and 'sound' around the first language you learn. Therefore, any language you learn after that will be tinged by the sound of the first language. It can be overcome with lots and lots and LOTS of practice and conscious effort, or if you learn that second language in congruence with the first one, but other than that, it's not the person's fault. It's literally their brain. If they learned that a Z makes an softer, more S like sound in their native language, it's not going to sound like the buzzing Z we know even if they're speaking English.

[HYHYBT]

When you say "can barely spit out a sentence," to me that would imply not knowing enough vocabulary and grammar well enough to form sentences well, rather than how they sound. Well, unless it's truly awful.

Part of it, for some people, may well be identity.

[Andara Bledin]

It's the brain, all right, but I don't think it really matters whether you learned any other languages as a kid.

I only know English. I learned a smidge of Spanish in 3rd grade, and some German in high school and grew up in and still remain in the same geographical area. I've only ever been around 2 accents (the other being my grandmother, who was from back east). But I can mimic accents fairly well. Most of it because I seem to have an innate understanding of how to make those sounds with my mouth and throat, and most people don't have that sort of verbal dexterity.

It's an aptitude like anything else. I can't cook, but I can mimic accents.

^-.-^

[linguist]

std pretty much nailed it. the neural pathways we use for speech are set at a very young age. when this happens, our internal grammar, phonetic inventory, and constraint system (in a linguistics context, constraints are the rules by which language operates) are pretty well set, which is why it becomes so difficult to learn a new language in adolescence or adulthood. that's not to say it can't be done, but those who acquire a second language later in life will never become truly fluent. i, for example, have spoken spanish most of my life, and while i do consider myself bilingual, i don't consider myself fluent in spanish as english was my first language and i still think in english, so i have to mentally translate everything.

the cumulative effect of differences in phonetic inventory and constraint systems is what we call accent. no matter how long you live in a particular area, chances are you will always have the accent of your first language.

as for why english is such a difficult language, there are a lot of reasons. one is that english is an infinitely adaptable language which has freely borrowed from other languages for centuries, which leads to some wild internal inconsistencies, particularly in spelling vs. pronunciation. beyond that, though, english has a much larger phonetic inventory than many other languages. standard american english, for example has 14 vowels, with more in regional variants (and by vowels i mean vowel sounds, not the written vowel) while spanish has 5. we also have different constraints, such as aspirating voiceless plosives at stressed syllable boundaries, which spanish doesn't do. another example would be that in spanish, certain consonant combinations are always preceded by a vowel ("sp" and "st" come immediately to mind), which is why when you hear some native spanish speakers say words like "stamp" they pronounce it "estamp."

as for your last couple of questions, french speakers living in germany would likely speak german with a french accent, and your example of a russian living in china is not quite on point, as the chinese languages are tonal, and accent isn't nearly as detectable in tonal languages.