I sometimes work with a PM in China who studied (recently!) four years in the UK. His English is so bad that I have to disect a sentence I utter to him complete

I sometimes work with a PM in China who studied (recently!) four years in the UK. His English is so bad that I have to disect a sentence I utter to him completely and test every part every time to know if he even understood. How does that work indeed? How did he surive there? I cannot ask him for obvious reasons.