[quote DifficultBloodyWoman]**@StellaDendrite* & @SingToTheSky* - since you asked....
This is something often studied in both Linguistics and Applied Linguistics and probably on Tesol courses as well.
Some examples on this thread are homophones in British English (draw/drawer). They sound the same but are spelled differently. These errors can occur with both native speakers and non-native speakers who have better speaking abilities than literacy. Because of the way language is acquired in an ESL classroom, specifically the way in which vocabulary is introduced and taught, non-native speakers will usually only make this mistake if they have learned English outside of a classroom setting.
There is a series of pronunciation books call ‘ship or sheep’ and ‘tree or three’. Accent can affect pronunciation (production of sound) and the way in which the listener perceived/receives the sound. Think of ‘3’ in an Irish accent. You would need context to decide if the speaker is saying tree or three.
Some sounds don’t exist in other languages. So speakers will use the closest phoneme (sound) in their own language. W is commonly pronounced the same way as V by Russian speakers. P and B in Arabic. So you don’t think I am picking on non-native English speakers unfairly,
don’t ask English speakers to produce the guttural ‘gh’ of Dutch and Flemish. A French R is also tough. If you are interested, Google phonemic pairs and explore from there. Some of the examples on this thread are of minimal pairs.
Literacy is another factor. If your first encounter with a word is when you hear it, you will likely adopt that pronunciation, if it is reinforced, even if it is different to your own accent. ‘Fred bear’ is an example that comes to mind. You may never see it written down and therefore if you need to spell it, you chose the most phonetic spelling. And I should point out here that much of the time English spelling does not make sense because it is a bastardised language which has stolen from so many others.
Conversely, if your first encounter with a word is in its written form, and you do not later here it spoken correctly, you will likely mispronounce it.
Never judge mispronunciations - it may well be a sign of being well read.[/quote]
Draw and Drawer are not pronounced the same in all accents, depends on whether it is rhotic or not which is why some people find it so off.
As for being well read, that was my youngest. He could use a vast vocabulary in written form from a young age but the flaw was when he was asked to read aloud in class.
I had a search of our local pages and didn't find much, a few small errors from folk with Eastern European looking names and some adverts completely in Russian (I'm in Scotland) but otherwise pretty good.
Things might be more prevalent in areas due to accent. I did notice someone asking if the tip was open for going way a van. Way being used instead of with.