OK, sometime in 1996, I had a computer programming class with an Asian TA. Of course, one of the main topics of discussion throughout '96 was the presidential election…
Or, as our TA said it, the “Presidential Erection”
Which turned out to be the topic for most of the next four years as well, of course…
In eighth grade, I had a friend from Brazil who couldn’t get the difference between sheet and shit. After months of struggling, he finally got it, and spent about twenty minutes walking down the street shouting “Sheet! Shit! Sheet! Shit!”
When I was in Brazil myself, I found out that the letter x is prounounced “shees.” I laughed when I saw many signs advertising “Burgers y X-Burgers”
Finnish is my mom’s native tongue. Finnish lacks the letter “B.” My modest Mom wrote my brother about some landscaping she was doing: “…and I put 50 pink pricks in the backyard.” That letter was a definite keeper.
She was playing Scrabble with a friend when she offered the word “vire.” “What’s that?,” asked the friend. Mom said, “You know, you put da vire in da vireplace.”
When she was learning English and was a newly-wed (Dad’s family also spoke Finn), she used to cook an occasional meal for my uncle Arnold. One time when Uncle Arnold thanked her, she decided to try out her English and told him “Oh, fuck it” (trying for “Forget it”). Uncle Arnold turned all shades of red but refused to tell her what it meant. When she asked Dad about it, he just roared with laughter.
We tease her about her English, but turnabout is fair play. I mispronounced “spatula” and “colander” for years - words I learned at my mother’s knee. 
Enright - was that friend living in the Ft. Worth area?
There’s a Pipeline road near where I live. My mother once joked to her sister-in-law that that was pipalini road. My very very clueless aunt said “Funny, I wouldn’t have pronounced it that way?”
The chinese lack of an R causes problems. Near my home you can get Flaglant Beef with Flied Lice.
At a cafeteria one time, I ordered roasted chicken. The server told me “We only have dog meat” What? The lady next to me pointed out that the server was saying dark meat.
Chinese has an ‘r’ sound, although its use is limited. The real problem is two consonant sounds in sequence and consonants(other than ‘r’) at the end of words. My Chinese teacher has fits over the word “Plural”.
–John
One time in French class, I very cleverly said “chacun son égout”. There’s a vowel in there that ought not to be.
Anyone besides me have a Simpsons chess set? The instructions that come with it are pretty good Chinelish; I’ll see if I can dig up my copy.
Not foreign, unless you consider Texas “foreign.” I used to know a woman in her late 80s, whose son, about 60, lived in Texas. When I saw him someone with him had trouble understanding him making, or trying to make, a distinction between “oil” and “all.”
I used to work with a carpenter from Germany. He sent me to get his “drill motor” once. I told him I couldn’t find one in his van, then he stormed back and angrily picked up his electric drill, saying that’s what he wanted!
Sometimes it isn’t pronunciation, but wrong idiom.
I work with a woman who is from Bosnia. She always insists that she has a bad grasp of English, but she’s actually very good. But her pronunciations crack me up sometimes.
When I ran late to a party: “I vas soo vorried about you, you focking beetch!”
Discussing a doctor appointment: HER: “I had to go to the jinn-oh-cole-LODGE-ist.”
ME: “Where?”
HER: “You know, the jinn-oh-cole-LODGE-ist.”
ME: “The gynecologist?”
HER: “That is vat I say-ed”
Discussing where to go for lunch: HER: “Do you vant something? I am going to the deli for a wedgie sandwich.”
ME: “Excuse me?”
HER: “A wedgie sandvich. You know, it has all of the wedgie-ta-bulls on it.”
ME: “Oh, a VEGGIE sandwich.”
HER: “Oh, did I confuse again the ‘V’ and the ‘W’? You know vat I mean.”
The other day, she said she’d teach me to say some words in her language. I said, that’s fine, but I would stink at the pronunciation. She said, “You know how you guys al-vays say that I talk so cute? Vell, vhen you speak MY language, you vill also be cute.”
I just love working with her.
In french class, they always stress to you that you drop the middle “e” in “medecin” (doctor)…I never thought to wonder why they gave so much import to this one word, but not other words. I asked my father (who’s fluent). Turns out that if you don’t drop it, it sounds pretty much the same as–spelling may be off–“mes deux siennes”…(my two breasts).
Once in Spanish class, we were talking about George Washington. I decided to mention that he had wooden teeth.
Only, I said "dientes de mierde"
So, I said he had shitty teeth. Technically true, but it took my teacher aback. (“dientes de madera” would be closer to original intent).
And then there was a time on our trip to Spain. One of my friends mispoke to the waiter, laughed and said “Yo estoy embarrasada.” He was attempting to say, “I am embarrased”, but what it meant was “I am pregnant.”
I was in Canada recently and met a Polish lady who told me that when she first arrived in the country she used to go around saying “I want a cock”.
What she really wanted, of course, was a “Coke”.
Mes deux seins, I think. Wow, that NEVER occurred to me. And I usually have a pretty dirty mind! Come to think of it, I’ve always pronounced medecin correctly. Just never questioned why it was a bit different than other words, in terms of dropping the second “e”.
Oh yeah, I heard this on one of those customer-service-rant sites. People were talking about waiting on celebrities, and one waitress said she served the late Rudolf Nureyev, who was a total letch, a time or two. He habitually asked waitresses for “a big Cock”, which he didn’t even want. Just wanted to see their reactions.
To be fair, she added, when she played along with him, she got a generous tip, with the stipulation that she should spend it, “on something lacy, for your pretty self”. This was before sexual harassment complaints.