An American man started speaking fluent Spanish suddenly after undergoing surgery, although he had only learned some Spanish before and had limited vocabulary. He was later diagnosed with a rare condition known as “Foreign Language Syndrome.”
According to a report by LadBible on January 6, the 33-year-old man named Stephen Chase from Utah, a father of three, underwent surgery when he was 19 due to a knee injury. Upon waking up in the recovery room after the surgery, he found himself speaking fluent Spanish.
However, he mentioned that his proficiency in Spanish was “very low.” “I didn’t speak Spanish before. I took one year of Spanish class in high school.”
He recalled, “It was really basic level, very low. I could maybe count to ten, occasionally say a few phrases.” He also admitted that he “didn’t pay much attention in class” back then.
He added that he didn’t quite remember speaking Spanish after the surgery, only recalling being told to speak English by others, which left him confused at the time.
The reason why Chase could speak Spanish was due to him suffering from “Foreign Language Syndrome.” This rare condition refers to a person suddenly changing their accent or language for a period of time before returning to their original state. The transition is unconscious and abrupt, with the patient seeming to fluently speak the new language.
Data from the National Library of Medicine in the United States shows that “Foreign Language Syndrome” can be triggered by various factors, including brain damage, psychological stress, and waking up after surgery. If this occurs after anesthesia, the change may last from minutes to hours.
In Chase’s case, he experiences this phenomenon every time after surgery. He believed that his brain switching from English to Spanish was because he grew up among the Hispanic community since he was young.
Chase said, “I grew up around a lot of Hispanics, always hearing them speak Spanish. I used to go to my best friend’s house a lot, and his parents always spoke Spanish. I never understood what they were saying, but I could always hear them.”
A similar condition to “Foreign Language Syndrome” is “Foreign Accent Syndrome,” where patients suddenly speak with a different accent, which is also quite rare.
The renowned medical institution, Cleveland Clinic in the United States, pointed out that French neurologist Pierre Marie first described this disease in 1907. Since then, there have been only 100 confirmed cases on record.
Prior to this, a British woman named Emily Egan suffered from “Foreign Accent Syndrome.” After an accident in 2020 followed by severe headaches, she started speaking with accents from Poland, Russia, France, and Italy, rotating between them.