>>Why do the french (France not Montreal) pronounce Birthday like this : "Birzday"
>>
>>I can't believe nobody told them how to pronounce TH.
>>
>>That one gets on my nerves everytime I hear them say it.
>>
>>But perhaps that's just me <g>
>
>It's so easy - try say "s" while putting the tongue tip on the top teeth (They could probably imitate someone with aq lisp anyway!)

What does the trick for most Slavic speakers is "put your tongue as if you want to pronounce a T, then try to pronounce a S while you're there". As for it aspired pair (spelled also th...), it's a "try ...D ...Z...".

>Also, I've heard many French pronounce "I have" as "Hi 'ave". So they CAN say "h" but not in the correct place.

I've seen and heard a born Brit here doing considerable tongue pushups, and he did manage to pronounce the name of Donald Knuth... albeit with a bit of a pause between K and N.

A pal of mine (from Ohio) practiced for days to pronounce my daughter's name: Bojana (j reads as y)... but only about once in thirty attempts did he manage to accentuate the first syllable. And he's actually the only one who tried, and noticed where the accent goes. For anyone else, a female name ending with -ana will have the -ANa accented, to the degree of deafness to any other accent.