Waaayyy back in college, I had a terrific Spanish diction professor who taught me something I remember to this day about the way we pronounce words.
I went to college in Indiana, but I grew up in North Jersey. At school
some people thought I had an accent

(And even I will admit it was pretty striking back then...).
Anyway, I didn't clearly appreciate how differently commons words were pronounced until this class.
He wrote 3 words on the board: Mary, merry and marry, and said how many people in the room pronounce these 3 words differently? I thought duh! of course they are all pronounced differently. Yet I was one of only 2 people in the class of about 20 students to raise my hand!!!
Wow!
So ever since then I have had a better appreciation for the very different ways we all speak the same language!
And for the record, even without that "NY" accent- I still pronounce all 3 of those words completely different. How about you??