Is English difficult to understand?

I woke up today wondering about English? What about English? As a Chinese, sadly, my mother tongue is not Mandrin. As a Hainanese, sadly, I cannot fluently speak my native dialect. However, I can listen and speak English with ease. Why so?

Here's the situation.

Last night, after having a walk out with Teng and having dinner with her ( I needed it badly, for the whole week, there seems to be little "just 2 of us" time alone ) we came back home to anticipate what normal people just wanted, time alone. We tried to watch just a couple of serials or movies together. One thing struck down hard: There were no sub-titles in the movies watched.

Girl Interupted, and some Singapore Made Movie by Eric Neo, starring Fann Wong and Gurmit Singh.

It was not really enjoyable, as there seems to be a lack of anticipation and enjoyment in watching. I can feel her anger and distress in not able to understand the movie and enjoying it.

Maybe I am being selfish, Maybe I need to fix problems and help her. But English, I was not born knowing it. I only had the environment in which I grew up hearing it more often, with different slangs and variations and tones in speaking it.

Similarly, when Teng was doing her internship weeks ago and part of her job let her met up with some Philiphino Big shot from the Government Sector, her collegues faced the same problem of not understanding what the individual is saying because of the accent. It was not a problem in written english, lack of command in language or small vocabulary capacity. It's due to just a simple thing: Accent

In China, many people do not understand each other just because Mandrin was not spoken properly.

So, can English be universal? Or must it remain so sad that if you study the Americans, you can only understand the Americans? And the whole population of Europeans, when they speak up, you face problems in understanding them?

Yes, people, I am speaking about you all. Full of excuses people. The new Generations who boomed in the new age. No more excuses. Lift up your ears and Listen. Its easier than you think.