> You can take whole classes just to learn how to pronounce the English /r/ in a way that sounds right. Which makes it especially unfortunate as a world language.

While true that is "solved" by having very distinct accents. Somebody from Oxford, Melbourne, Delhi and Houston ( all pronounce the /r/ and other sounds quite different, but will still understand each other (given a little will on both sides)

Tolerance of different pronunciations is helpful for people learning to speak English, but not so much for following what they're saying. Plus of course we have a significant number of words where an attempted phonetic pronunciation might not be a bit unusual so much as completely unintelligible. At least we're not that fussy about stress and apart from implied questions don't really convey much important meaning with tone.

I don't know about you, but I have a very hard time understanding a lot of Indian accents specifically because of the unfamiliar stress patterns. (That, and their avoidance of aspirated consonants, which drives me crazy.)

tbh I find the unfamiliar stress patterns of reasonably fluent Indian English speakers a lot less problematic than some of the quirks my fellow Brits' stronger regional accents! The tendency to enunciate syllables we often mash together actually tends to be clearer

Yeah I do decent with Indian accents as well. And I have more trouble with Chinese accents and many British accents. But I mostly can’t stand the southern English and their inability to pronounce the letter R. It sounds like someone with a speech impediment. As an American I greatly prefer speaking to a Scot or Irishman.

And the closer you get to London the more the English have a French culture. By that I mean an inferiority/superiority complex. They’re always better than everyone else.