> The fact that people from different English speaking countries have issues communicating is already a big hint about how odd is English phonetically. Is this

> The fact that people from different English speaking countries have issues communicating is already a big hint about how odd is English phonetically. Is this a fact? I wasn't under the impression that there is a general problem of communication among UK/US/Canada/Australia people. Maybe with some of the more extreme Scottish accents? Or former African colonies with very thick accents? In any case, the comparison with Italian is moot if the issue is with foreigners learning the language. It's great if all Italians understand each other's accents, but this doesn't say anything about whether learners of "school Italian" understand Sicilians. Or whether foreign learners of the "school dialect" of German would understand my Eastern Austrian.