American man speaks fluent Spanish following surgery
American man, Stephen Chase, has claimed that after each time he undergoes surgery, he wakes up speaking fluent Spanish for around an hour, despite barely knowing the language.
While others might prepare for surgery with vitamins or a good night’s sleep, one might picture Chase on Duolingo; when he comes out the other end, Chase only answers the doctors in Spanish, despite admitting he only knows a very “low level” of the language to begin with.
“Ever since I was 19, I have woken up from surgeries speaking Spanish every time,” he told Kennedy News and Media.
The 33-year-old Utah native went on, “The nurses say they ask me questions like ‘how are you feeling?’ and ‘am I in pain?’ after waking up, and I answer the questions in Spanish.”
Though he learnt Spanish at school, it was only to a minimal level, and he hadn’t attempted to keep up his language acquisition skills since. However, since undergoing surgery and finding himself caught in the strange tongue at the other end, he has now become “fluent” at a “native level”.
Chase’s upbringing may have influenced this. “I spent a lot of time at my best friend’s house, and his parents were always speaking Spanish. I never knew what anyone was saying, but I heard it all the time,” he confessed.
Therefore, he will be, in some ways, familiar with the tongue, as he “frequently heard the language around me” while his brain was developing.
Nonetheless, the language doesn’t last long. As per the subject’s own guestimation, it usually “subsides within an hour.”
This strange phenomenon has been called Foreign Language Syndrome. It can be engendered by factors such as brain injury, psychological stress, or after waking up from surgery.
At first, this was a shock for the nurses who were assigned to his case. However, at least Chase now knows how to suitably prepare. “Now I tell people that I tend to wake up speaking Spanish so they’re prepared,” he shared.