Following a surgery, a Utah man started speaking fluent Spanish in front of his wife, all while still numb from medications. That wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, other than the fact that he, apparently, does not even know the language.
The clip was shared by TikTok user H.C. Maybe, and it shows her husband pointing at his nose, saying, in Spanish, “I feel like blood is coming out of my nose.” To his wife’s shock, he said it so fluently, and even without an American accent.
H.C., however, does not speak Spanish, and, understandably, was shocked by the words coming out of her husband’s non-bilingual mouth. She told him, “You gotta speak English.” He then answered, in Spanish, “I already did that.” The wife asked if he was speaking in English, and he said that he was. He wasn’t.
“You’re speaking Spanish,” H.C. told her husband, to which he responded, “No,” in a very non-American accent. H.C. continued, “I don’t even know where you learned Spanish.” Feeling defeated, the man, frustrated, asked, “Again?“
A Bilingual Man? Reactions
In a follow-up TikTok, the man is seen attempting to make his wife understand that he didn’t sleep the previous night. Then, in a third clip, H.C. revealed that her husband didn’t grow up speaking Spanish.
She was responding to a comment theorizing that he was experiencing Foreign Language Syndrome. However, according to the National Library of Medicine, this condition appears in post-op patients who are bilingual or multilingual. It is characterized by a prolonged, involuntary use of a non-native language.
Many users were in awe after listening to the Utah man speaking in perfect Spanish. Some even theorized “exotic” explanations.
“He has a second family with a Latina baddie,” one user wrote. Another commented, “Maybe he’s CIA, and you never knew.” while a third suggested, “You have to change it in Settings> Language> English.”
Whatever exposure the Utah man might have had to the Spanish language, it seems to have worked wonders. He is, by all means, a native speaker, or at least he is after being operated on for hours.
