\u201cI wasn\u2019t capable of speaking for that long in Spanish at that time, I was very shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chase said he believed his brain may have absorbed the language by osmosis, having grown up around \u201clots of Hispanic people\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nurses say they ask me questions like \u2018how are you feeling?\u2019 and \u2018am I in pain?\u2019 after waking up, and I\u2019d answer the questions in Spanish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my head, I\u2019m just speaking and can\u2019t understand why they don\u2019t understand me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was completely fluent, I think it completely subsides within an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen Chase began speaking Spanish after waking from surgery, despite only have beginner-level skills before the procedure.<\/p>\n
LadBible reported that Chase, who admitted he \u201cdidn\u2019t really pay attention in school\u201d, has even made the most of his newfound skill, including during a gospel mission trip to Chile.<\/p>\n
The father-of-three has undergone several surgeries for football-related injuries over the past decade, and after each one he has woken up speaking Spanish at what he describes as \u201cnative-level\u201d fluency.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a pretty good second-language speaker, but it became native fluency level,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s interesting what the brain has stored up that we\u2019re not able to tap into.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foreign Language Syndrome is a rare condition in which people temporarily abandon their native tongue and begin speaking a second language involuntarily.<\/p>\n
It is believed to be triggered by events such as strokes, head injuries or periods of psychological stress.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI wasn\u2019t capable of speaking for that long in Spanish at that time, I was very shocked.\u201d Chase…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,8239,124,49325,9174,2209,134520,71,42,78,43,65633,5815,20247,23333,6290,40,38,41,39,3040,13993],"class_list":["post-224947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-american","tag-could","tag-dad","tag-discover","tag-father","tag-fluent","tag-from","tag-headlines","tag-in","tag-news","tag-spanish","tag-speak","tag-stunned","tag-suddenly","tag-surgery","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us","tag-waking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}