2026-01-07 12:07:52

A US dad woke up from surgery and suddenly started speaking fluent Spanish.

Utah native Stephen Chase was just 19 when he went under the knife for a routine knee operation after a football injury.

What he didn’t expect was to come round from the anaesthetic speaking a language he barely knew.

Now 33 and a father of three, Stephen says his Spanish background was… basically non-existent.

“I did not speak Spanish,” he is quoted by LadBible as saying. “I had a year in high school. Beginner level. Maybe I could count to 10 and knew a couple of phrases.”

Yet when Stephen woke up from surgery, hospital staff and family were left stunned as he spoke confidently in Spanish – while being totally unaware he was doing it.

“I don’t really recollect speaking Spanish,” he said. “Just people asking me to speak English and me being really confused.”

He says he wasn’t capable of speaking Spanish for long periods at any other point in his life – before or after the operation.

“I was very shocked,” he added. Honestly, same.

The explanation lies in an extremely rare neuropsychiatric condition known as Foreign Language Syndrome (FLS) – sometimes grouped together with Foreign Accent Syndrome.

The condition causes a person to suddenly switch from their native language or accent to another one, involuntarily and without warning.

To everyone listening, the patient appears fluent, even if they’ve never spoken the language properly before.

According to the National Library of Medicine, FLS can be triggered by things like brain injury, psychological stress, or – crucially in Stephen’s case – waking up from surgery. When anaesthesia is involved, the effects can last anywhere from a few minutes to several hours before the brain resets itself.

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