I don't think that it's a matter of accent. I cannot speak for Spanish, but adult Italian learners do have an accent, but being that in general written Italian

I don't think that it's a matter of accent. I cannot speak for Spanish, but adult Italian learners do have an accent, but being that in general written Italian is pretty much phonetic and we only have 7 distinct vowel sounds however you mangle it you can probably approximate it well enough to be understood. Some things are really hard in Italian like the GL in aglio (garlic), but for example most Romans tend to turn it into a semiconsonant (like the first i in ieri). So basically you'll be understood. Contrast that with French, that is also mostly phonetic but has a lot more vowels (around 17), that is also a language that is usually much harder to learn to speak as an adult (but it's not so bad if you just want to read. And maybe that is why everybody has this stereotype of the rude Parisian that never tries to understand a foreigner speaking French (though there might be more to the rudeness of Parisians).