Like radarsat1 mentioned, after living as an expat you start to optimize speaking for the understanding of the locals. At first you're pretty bad at this, but after understanding the local language more you get much better. I'm both Dutch and American, but when in the Netherlands (speaking English) I optimize my English for easier understanding by Dutch people. (Which is not really necessary, but does help in many situations.) That takes the form of simpler words and speaking slower and clearly, but also more subtle things, like modifying word order, using as many cognates as possible, and avoiding false cognates.
My wife grew up in Tamil Nadu, India - and English was her primary language growing up. When we travel, her English is infinitely easier for people to understand than mine, despite how hard I try. (In India, especially, but elsewhere too.) I think, "speak simply, deliberately, clearly, not-quickly" and get blank stares. She can mumble and speak quickly - comprehension is instantaneous.
Some things are obvious, like your example of modifying word order. Front-loading objects in sentences seems critical for understanding. Hindi and Tamil are both subject-object-verb languages, though I'm not convinced this is the reason it works, and suspect it's more universal than that.
Her pronunciation also changes dramatically. It doesn't feel so much as speaking broken English as being fluent in a local pidgin. After a while, sentences like "Ma, what you take?" start to sound so natural that I catch myself doing it unconsciously.
