Problem with accents.

[Swoka Swizaw]

I can imagine that this question has been posed before, but I'm here now, so yeah...

Anyway, does anyone's "standard" accent (Australian, British, Slavic, just to name a limited few) impede one from articulating any sounds in Na'vi just enough that it seems annoying. I recall Zoe Saldana, among others, having issue with the /ä/ at the end of words, and they SPOKE ENGLISH! The sound, [{], if I'm correct, evolved in modern English from the Latin /a/ in closed syllable form and, thus, never appears as an open syllable.

But, I digress, does anyone have any impediments?

[omängum fra'uti]

I'd imagine it's true of any language that when the sounds don't match up with your native language sounds, that it can be a difficulty learning it. But yes, many people have difficulty with sounds they are not used to saying, whether it is because the vowel doesn't exist in the language, or never occurs in an open syllable.

Here are, off the top of my head, the difference in vowel sounds between Na'vi and GA English.

e - Only part of a diphthong
ì - Only in closed syllables
ä - Only in closed syllables
a - Never occurs in GA English (The a in father is a back vowel, not a front vowel like the Na'vi a)
o - Only part of a diphthong

['Oma Tirea]

e - Only part of a diphthong

Not in closed syllables.  In open syllables, it can morph to the English long a ({eː}/{eɪ}) sound.

ì - Only in closed syllables
ä - Only in closed syllables

o - Only part of a diphthong

Correct.

a - Never occurs in GA English (The a in father is a back vowel, not a front vowel like the Na'vi a)

Not standard GA.  It might occur allophonically in NJ-American or New-England English in the non-rhotic pronounciation of words like "car": {kʰaː}

Or it can occur allophonically in Southern-American English in a word like "time" : {tʰaːm}

Unfortunately, for most of us GA English speakers, we don't have that phoneme, and it may shift to {ɑ} instead.

You also forgot that u can also be part of a diphthong in most dialects of English, even in those dialects that have undergone {j}-dropping.