I can certainly relate to what the author says about the English spoken in Europe. I'm Canadian, and spent half a year in the Flemish part of Belgium a decade

I can certainly relate to what the author says about the English spoken in Europe. I'm Canadian, and spent half a year in the Flemish part of Belgium a decade or so back as part of an internship program. Through the program made friends with people from all over the world, but mostly Europe. Interestingly, in that group most people found the member of the group from London easier to understand than me from the west coast of Canada, when we were both speaking 'normally'. I was pretty natural to fall into the habit of speaking what we referred to as "International English" though—basically the simplified form the author here refers to. Still occasionally had funny exchanges though, like when my Belgian coworkers assured me that my use of the phrasing "almost exactly" couldn't possibly make sense.