Exactly!  Si++ was commenting on the mistake he has often seen native speakers making of writing ´should of´ for ´should have´

You should of realised!!!!

The difference between effect and affect...it is not that hard  What I have seen in checking business assignments of people... customer or costumer... the spelling checks says they are both correct, but when you´re talking business the chance is small that you want to talk about people who make costumes.

What a great thread! What really gets my goats is how the natives use apostrophes, especially when making plural nouns: photo´s, cake´s etc. You can see such things in cafes (not cafe´s) and restaurants here all the time. Also, perhaps it´s just the Irish, tend to use "me" instead of "my," as in "it does me head in" or, more commonly heard, "me bollix" (yes, bollix not bollocks.) And they use weird constructions like "to be do" and "be after doing something" but that´s probably direct translations from Irish.

Sonunda is right about non-natives always sounding foreign, no matter how well they learn a language. So many factors influence that, starting with our biology ie brain´s ability to hear different sounds and categorise them as separate phonemes or our articulators that get fixed positions as we grow up. It was interesting to observe it at the university, where we learnt (or learned as Americans would say I guess) all the theory behind pronouncing different sounds but still, many people were unable to repeat them. Our native pronunciation habits play a big part here. We, Poles, always change word-final voiced consonants into voiceless ones, hence seeing the word "food" we´re likely to read it as "foot." The idea of long vs short vowels is non-existent in polish, so it shouldn´t surprise native English speakers that when we say we need "keys" they hear that we´d like "kiss."

Even if we learn the correct pronunciation of individual words, there´s still the melody, sentence rythm and tune that differ from our native ones. I remember one time when I was in Turkey, my friend told me it was time I started using Turkish and told me to tell the waiter to get the bill. I called the waiter and asked politely "Hesap alabilir miyim?", to which the said friend reacted with surprise and asked why I was so rude. Apparently the melody was wrong and I sounded aggressive...oh, well...

Back at the university when I had a lot of English around me - classes, natives, etc, I was always told how good my accent was. A few natives were actually surprised I didn´t grew up in eastern London. the funny thing is, I wouldn´t be able to tell this accent from any other in the Uk (ok, maybe apart from Geordie ). What I always used to do while speaking was to exaggerate and mock what I remembered from British films and songs. And it worked. Too bad for me, I don´t have a fixed accent, which means that I tend to pick up an accent and a manner of speaking as I go. It might be a bit embarrassing at times when speaking to a person with a lisp. Subconsciously I start lisping too. Many years ago I went to visit friends in eastern Poland, after a week I had their funny accent, which made my mum roll on the floor. Now, having lived in Ireland for almost 3 years I don´t have any accent at all. I mean, you still wouldn´t tell I was Polish, but I don´t sound either British nor Irish. I reckoned it wasn´t a good idea to speak with a British accent so I tried something more American. As I´ve never been a great fan of American accent, I don´t sound very convincing, though. Still, it´s enough to baffle people who always try to guess where I am from. So far I have been thought to be from each English-speaking country short of RSA Well...maybe in 10 years I´ll finally pick Hiberno English. Keep your fingers crossed!

Some linguists believe there is a language acquisition mechanism that is only active in early childhood. The language you learn in childhood is your native one. Bilingualism is an exception of couse, scientists talk about a dominant language, it is supposed to be the one in which we make calculations etc.

As far as I know, no language teaching program sets such a challenging target as "being able to speak like a native speaker." Unless you are planning to work as a spy, this would not be very necessary. They say anyone spending 7 active years in a foreign country could have a native like command of the language spoken in that country.

The phonetic aspects of a language pose one of the biggest challenges for learners. Nevertheless, it is perfectly possible for someone to study and learn a language on a discourse level far exceeding the average. This brings us back to Joseph Conrad the Polish captain who wrote one of the most sophisticated novels of the English language although his native language was Polish.

Quoting Daydreamer

As I´ve never been a great fan of American accent, I don´t sound very convincing, though. Still, it´s enough to baffle people who always try to guess where I am from. So far I have been thought to be from each English-speaking country short of RSA Well...maybe in 10 years I´ll finally pick Hiberno English. Keep your fingers crossed!

What is it about US English? There is a strange flat twang to it.  John Wayne is the archtype of US English.  Of course, there the Robert DeNiro (faugedahbtit) style as well...still not pretty.

There is a nasal quality to it and a lazy nature of reducing words to one syllable.  Of course, let´s not forget Southern American English. It has a few variations as well.  There is the Texas accent of Jim Hightower

It´s tragic that through the years up to now, much of it is barely intelligible.

My favorite English is that of the Cambridge area. It has a nice lilt to it.

I sometimes have a problem with the "talking like a native" thing. A lot of "natives" don´t speak perfect English. I understand all of my foreign friends when they speak English, except for my friend from Manchester. Half of the time I have no idea what´s coming out of her mouth. When I had my English for business course at university, my teacher asked me if I lived in the UK for a while, since I made some "native" mistakes. So speaking like a native isn´t what you should aim for. And native itself is already so vague. In Holland they prefer teachers with a classic British accent, but an Australian is also a native. So if he would teach all the kids to talk with an Australian accent, they would also be speaking like natives.

What a strange favourite! (in my opinion) - maybe you mean favourite out of the ones you have heard!

 I quite like my sarf London axecent meself...

I thought it was possible to set the spell checker to either American or British English .

I also don´t like -ize but not because it´s American, I just don´t like the way it looks!  Perhaps I´m a little odd but I have favourite words, depending on the way they look or sound.  I love words that sound "cuddly" . . .lol. . . I am sounding more odd by the minute.

In his book, "Shakespeare: The World as a Stage", Bill Bryson writes:

"We are not sure how best to spell his name – but then neither, it appears, was he, for the name is never spelt the same way twice in the signatures that survive. They read as Willm Shaksp, William Shakespe, Wm Shakspe, William Shakspere, Willm Shakspere and William Shak-speare. One spelling he didn’t use was the one now universally attached to his name."

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article2283218.ece

This seems to be true of spelling in general in those days.

It´s a while since I read his book, but Bryson also discusses American spellings and, from what I can remember (I gave the book to a friend and it has never been returned ) it would seem that a good amount of it can be traced back to England. Of course there were settlers from other parts of the world too.  I haven´t read it yet, but Bryson will probably have mentioned this in his book "Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language".

One of my pet hates:

alot . . . not one word but two i.e.  "a lot"

also:

some abbreviate etcetera/et cetera as "ect" and it should be "etc."

In schools (I can only speak for Primary) children are taught about use of language in formal and informal situations.  In some schools, the latest resource in class is a crown. The children put on the crown and endeavour to "speak like the Queen" (not a queen ).  The boys prefer to be a king or a prince, but overall, the younger children enjoy it and it´s a less intrusive, entertaining way of teaching them.

There is a boy in the school where I work and he is of Asian Indian heritage.  He has red hair!  The only member of his family to have it. 

Are you a native English speaker Janette?

I might speak in a more rushed and colloquial style amongst friends but at work, and when speaking to my turkish friends, I use more formal language and speak more clearly. When I email my Turkish friends I use formal English, because I know they´ll learn from it.  One of my Turkish friends prides himself on his standard of English and I must say it´s excellent.  I tend to use more challenging words when I email him, in order to broaden his vocabulary (I know he will look up the word).  It´s the same with idioms etc. I will use them in emails in order to broaden the knowledge of the recipient.

Although I´ve lived in the North West of England for most of my life, I wasn´t born there and I´ve lived in more than a handful of areas of England, as well as abroad.  I would class myself as from the North West, but people can´t always detect this from my accent. 

"For example.... i would type dint instead of didn´t or summat instead of something."

Do you mean you would write this if you were a non native English speaker, listening to English natives from the North?

However informal my language might be orally, I wouldn´t use it when writing.  That brings me to another annoyance (for me) . . . text messages!  I have OCD and hate to abbreviate or use lower case when there should be a capital letter (mainly I/i).  Thankfully I have unlimited texts so I can tap away endlessly .