>>> I find the Puerto Ricans are more easily understood than Mexicans in general once you get past the speed with which they speak!
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>Interesting that you say that. I attended a high school with a pretty large Hispanic population. Hearing them speak Spanish, it often sounded like they spoke really fast. I later decided that many foreign languages sound fast because if you don't understand the language, what you hear is every syllable instead of the whole word. Yet, some cultures must talk faster because when I hired a Jamaican, he certainly spoke English quite fast. With the speed and the accent, it was sometimes hard to understand him even though he was speaking English.

It goes beyong different languages. I think it's a cultural phenomenon. I used to work with a guy from Australia where they contend that they speak a form of English. When he got excited, he spoke very fast, and it was almost impossible to understand him. By the same token, many, many moons ago, I dated a young lady from Newfoundland. Same thing. When she got excited about something, I couldn't understand a word (I'm assuming there were actual words somewhere in the flow).