[1] The extent to which native speakers can identify a non-native accent is linked to the age at which individuals begin to immerse themselves in a language.
[2] English is unusual in that speakers rarely produce an audible release between consonant clusters and often overlap constriction times.
Speaking English with a timing pattern that is dramatically different may lead to speech that is difficult to understand.
While 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] several theoretical models have presumed that non-native speech perceptions reflect both the abstract phonological properties and phonetic details of the native language.
[7] Non-native speech patterns can be passed on to the children of learners, who will then exhibit some of the same characteristics despite being native speakers themselves.