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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/10496
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

One thing typical for all languages would be the speaker using the wrong word when they translate to the same word in their native language. For example, my native language has the same word for both 'roof' and 'ceiling' and I used to have trouble picking the correct one in English.

Another one would be having slightly awkward phrasing: not the perfect choice of words all the time. Maybe a word or two missing. (I make that sort of mistakes all the time. See my edits for a minor example.) Try not to refine the lines, but leave them at 'draft quality'.

They might also have a couple of uncommon words in their vocabulary that they looked up from the dictionary to express some word often used in their language. (_'We don't usually say something like that'_ is a fairly common response in the language SEs.)

For Japanese, I'll refer you to this [series of articles](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/mistake_english/archive) (by Melanie Barr) that points out typical mistakes the Japanese (supposedly) make when speaking English. Updates are posted weekly. The articles are in Japanese but you should have no trouble gleaning the English sentences from them.

They also make the mistakes the Chinese do as described in @dmm's answer. (Although I don't think the Japanese have trouble with plurals.) In addition, some people overuse the passive voice since it lets them speak/write in a more natural word order. (Japanese puts the verb last. Example: _The problem that encoding of 5.1 channel source didn't work was revised._)

Another peculiarity of theirs would be the use of certain English compounds that might sound nonsensical; this is known as ['wasei-eigo'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eigo_terms) ('English made in Japan') and an example of it -- quite ironically -- has found its way into the logo of the site in the first link: 'One point English'. Better phrased, it would be 'A quick lesson in English'.

Original score: 6