Our teachers used to tell us that picking either British or American English was fine, but we should make a choice and stick with it. In my opinion, what matter

Our teachers used to tell us that picking either British or American English was fine, but we should make a choice and stick with it. In my opinion, what matters is being understood, and I haven’t really followed that rule. I try to follow British spelling conventions, but for vocabulary, the American cultural influence is just so much greater that it becomes the natural choice. For pronunciation, I generally tend more toward British, and I make an effort to avoid typical Swedish-English mistakes that can impact your ability to be understood (th, sh/ch, voiced s, schwa). But beyond those few items, I don’t go out of my way to avoid influences from my native tongue. Having a natural flow is more important than imitating a specific accent.