Many people spend years learning a new language.
Most people have to spend months in the country to become fluent at it.
But this Italian man became fluent overnight after hitting his head and waking up entirely a ‘French’ man.
The man, known only as JC, never expressed an interest in French culture before and couldn’t even speak the language.
But following a brain injury, he now speaks ‘movie-like’ French and poses as a French man.
The 50-year-old even enjoys French films, books and food.
In a report published in the journal Cortex, JC was said to speak in a ‘fast pace with exaggerated intonation using a movie-like prosody and posing as a typical caricature of a French man.’
Though he insisted on speaking French, he still continues to write in Italian.
The report added: ‘He claims that he cannot but speak French, he believes that he is thinking in French and he longs to watch French movies (which he never watched before), buys French food, reads French magazines and seldom French books, but he writes only in Italian.
‘He shows no irritation if people do not understand him when he speaks in French.’
JC had only briefly dated a French woman in his 20s but had never shown a particular interest in the culture.
He’d learnt it in school too but had not spoken it for ‘decades’.
As a result of the injury, he reportedly now wakes up every morning, opens the window and shouts ‘bonjour’.
He is said to have a rare medical phenomenon called compulsive foreign language syndrome.
Around 60 people in the world have developed the syndrome following a head injury.
