When I was in early 20’s it was much easier for me to chat with people much older than me than ones of my age, unless they shared my hobbies and interests.
Now in my late 20’s, I still find chatting with people of early 30’s easier, but I think that’s reasonable.
That’s why everyone learning English should also learn basic IPA to be able to read phonetic transcription and pronounce words correctly.
Just knowing the symbols for all English vowels/consonants is fine, no need to study IPA more than that, unless you find it interesting, like me.
I recommend reading this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology.
Just look up consonant and vowel charts here, you don’t need to study the details unless you really need to. Especially given that this article is full of linguistic jargon, and you probably won’t be able to understand any of this unless you have elementary knowledge of phonetics/phonology.