ceigered:A quick question - has Brazilian Esperanto come to anyone's minds during this conversation by any chance?

You'll find some good examples in the film Gerda Malaperis!, since it was made in Brazil, e.g. observe how vin is pronounced. There are more examples in this trailer of La Patro.

Rohan:

ceigered:My accent of bad pronunciation is clear disregard for the phonology of a language, which I assume you may be imagining in place of "accent".

Did you mean 'my idea of bad pronunciation...'?

BAHAHA! Yes, my idea. That's what happens if you let my mind roll on by itself!

Now, the phonology of a language (or variety) will tell you

(a) how many 'abstract sound units' (phonemes) there are,

(b) the different ways those abstract sound units can actually be pronounced (phones), and

(c) which environments trigger which phones.

Disregard for the phonology of a language automatically manifests itself as a foreign or non-local accent from the POV (or POH, perhaps? ) of the speakers of that language.

For example, the phonology of (most native varieties of) English dictates that the phonemes /k/, /t/, and /p/ be aspirated when they begin a stressed syllable. Fail to do that, and... Presto! It'll seem like you have a foreign (Indianish?) accent.

Similarly, the weakening of unstressed vowels and the swallowing-up of R's go contrary to the principles of Esperanto phonology. Disregarding these principles will end up giving your Esperanto what we've been calling a 'national accent' here.

Note that an accent is any rule-bound, systematic, non-haphazard manner of pronunciation. Even the Queen of England has an accent, albeit a relatively prestigious one.

This is basically what I had in mind, but with a lot less smart and scientific terms! Indeed, it is possible to have a foreign accent depending where vowels or other sounds are in a spectrum of "understandable sounds within a single phoneme".

If I may say so, I'd like to liken it to archery. Where you are able to hit the target defines your accent. A native speaker may get bullseyes every time, where as a foreign speaker may not, and may hit other parts of the target. Like this picture from Little John Arrows.
Where problems occur is where the arrows miss the target entirely, or hit a different target nearby.

E.g. Someone pronounces "g" in English as [x], aka the guttural german sound. Since this sound is minimal at best in English, an English speaker won't confuse this foreign attempt at "g" with another letter. Only, more likely in this case, they won't likely even understand the letter at all.

As for swallowing up those Rs and vowels, that would be like hitting the rim of a target at best IMHO . Of course, Chinese, English and French get away with having many homophones, so you won't be unintelligible if you do swallow them, but it'll be interesting. Just like how an archery instructor can always see where your arrows were meant to be heading when they miss the target, so can a fluent and experienced speaker do the same. I reckon at least.

@ Milando (EDIT: Not sure where that came from)
Ah, THAT movie... That is a good example, but I was primarily thinking of La Kurso de Esperanto
BTW, funny thing in the comments section, some guy was having a tirade about how wrong it is we're forcing people to learn esperanto and how we lie by calling Esperanto an international language. That poor pup needs to be learnt what "inter" and "national" actually mean before he debates on those grounds

Weirdest thing I've come across Erinja, is the notion of some French people that an English accent when speaking French is sexy.

Anyway, what should be kept in mind, is that it is one thing for a native speaker of a national language being able to understand a foreign accent and quite another thing that Esperantists (who mostly use Esperanto occasionally) should have a similar ability.

Because none of us has native speaker like familiarity with Esperanto, there must be much greater emphasis on speaking correctly.

Intelligibility is indeed the most important thing, and that's why I think it's important to try hard to get the right pronunciation.

BUT I do still maintain that in a battle between grammar and pronunciation, I choose good grammar as being more important.

--

I personally think an English accent sounds horrid speaking anything other than English.

Here is a fun skit with Duncan Carters having some fun with various accents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiOdOSTtaA0

saasmath:Here is a fun skit with Duncan Carters having some fun with various accents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiOdOSTtaA0

The person on the right is Andre from Leipzig/Germany. One of his hobbies is to immitate other language accents in E-o. (Appears several times at this video).

But also other e-o ulo like that hobby. i.e. Alekĉjo (France) (organizes the karavano al sekva JES rekontiĝo. He also did it last year.) Just with that strong (switched on) french accent E-o can be understood. In my opinion.