It's true, Dale.

The most interesting thing is that when airline employees speak in Portuguese you can clearly understand what they are saying ...

I have a coworker who lived in England for two years and I barely can understand him as he always speaks in English very fast (short and fast expressions, actually). I have to confess that I used to feel a little bit frustrated about this, since it was difficult for me to understand him. I don't have this sort of difficult when talking with native speakers (when I 'm not able to understand them, it's due to lack of vocabulary or accents I'm not familiar with).

Perhaps people who are exposed and have to show fluency think that rapidness is a sign of luency ... I don't know ...