I remember watching a documentary about babies. Before they are born, they listen to their mother and learn the melody of their mothers language. When they are born, they instinctively pay most attention to sounds that sound like the mothers language, but their sense of hearing hasn’t yet differentiated, so they can hear all the individual sounds in all languages, whether that sound is present in their mothers language or not. As the baby gets older, the sense of hearing specialises, to the point where the ability to hear the sounds not present in mothers language becomes diminished.

The English language is hard coded into your brain. All the sounds in English are connected in your brain to memories, feelings, understanding, meaning. It’s not just a collection of meaningless sounds to you, like it is to someone that doesn’t speak English. Spanish is not yet hard coded in your brain, so the meaningless sounds of the Spanish language haven’t fully been connected to memories and meaning.

For me, when I hear the word “smile” in English, I immediately think of someone smiling, and the feel of what smiling is in my own face. How my facial muscles move. When I hear “sonrisa” in Spanish, I know it’s smile, but only cos I translate to English, and then get the meaning from English. I don’t yet hear “sonrisa” and relate it to my own facial muscles moving or see someone smiling in my head.

That’s my theory.