The standard of ATC English varies a great deal.
A lot of it is barely intelligible, and I am pretty sure that a good 50% of non-UK ATCOs would be completely unable to hold a normal conversation; they know just the little snippets they need to know like "report localiser established".
I have found many times it's no good asking them stuff other than the standard aviation phrases.
Consequently, the ATIS is frequently partly unintelligible and one has to call up the approach to clarify it. Often so in France.
Flying around VFR isn't easy and one has to be prepared for hiccups along the way.