There's a young Brazilian woman in work who told me that she lived in Ohio for a few years and had no trouble understanding Americans as they spoke but now that she lives in Britain she has trouble understanding us. She finds British English much harder than American English. She says Americans speak more slowly than Brits and tend to pronounce more syllables whereas the Brits speak more quickly and miss some syllables out in words, so she has trouble understanding us. We can speak to her and have a conversation with her but often if she listens to some of us chatting together she can hardly understand us. It's similar as to how Brazilian Portuguese is supposedly clear and easy to understand and they pronounce every syllable whereas European Portuguese is more difficult to understand as they miss vowels out and speak like they have a potato in their mouths.
