He had a foreign accent....been here all these years apparently and still couldn’t get rid of the home country accent, I guess.
In the "For What It's Worth" department I once had an expert in foreign languages explain to me why a person who learns a foreign language after puberty has a very difficult--if not impossible--problem with acquiring the native accent of the language he has learned. He told me that it all has to do with the "learned muscles" (not his term, mine...he had a term but I have forgotten it) within the mouth. Once this has imprinted itself on the person as he learned his native language, it is extremely difficult to unlearn it in order to learn the different pronunciations, intonations and whatall of a new language.