Kenneth Hagin has been heard to speak in German, Spanish and Arabic whilst knowing nothing of these languages.  One time he was speaking in tongues and  a man in the audience heard him speak in perfect Arabic – that man went home changed by the things he had heard.

A Catholic lady called Joan was due to visit Russia in the early 1980s when Bibles were forbidden there.  She was praying in tongues in a prayer meeting and afterwards a Professor of Languages also in the group came and asked her if she knew she’d been speaking with a perfect Russian accent. She had no idea and excitedly asked what she’d been saying, expecting it to be the wonderful praise she had felt.  He said she’d been repeating “Is this the right street?”. Although disappointed Joan was encouraged to take some Bibles and find ways to pass them on.  On one occasion Joan felt prompted to speak in tongues to an older Russian lady in the street – the lady beamed and hugged Joan with tears in her eyes.  Joan continues to pray for Russia, often in tongues.

In 2009 in a church in Wimbledon, UK, a lady who thought she was speaking in tongues was heard to be speaking in a Punjabi dialect.

When  Surprise Sithole was 15 years old he and his friend walked into Malawi into villages to tell people about Jesus. Surprise knew some words in the Chichewa language but not enough for a  conversation.  He started trying to speak to a group and realised they didn’t understand but he kept on speaking and was suddenly aware he was no longer speaking in his own language.  From that day on he has been able to speak the Chichewa language.  And this was the first of many such occasions and he is currently able to speak 17 languages without any formal learning.  His wife was able to speak English in this way also.  Pastor Surprise now oversees more than 10,000 churches in Africa.  ( See ‘Voice in the Night’ by Pastor Surprise)

Pastor David Carr from Solihull was asked to pray for a line of 10 missionaries from many different countries who were attending an AOG conference.  He thought he was praying in tongues for each but many people witnessed the fact that he prayed for each in the local dialect of their missionary locality – all 10 – and spoke into their situation there accurately.

Dr Bill Hamon prayed for a young girl to receive the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues, which she did.  A lady in the audience who was sceptical about the gift of tongues heard the girl speaking perfect Spanish and then appreciated that this is a genuine gift.

At a church meeting, Janet, who had never heard tongues before, was prayed for in tongues by a man.  She had her eyes closed throughout and in the middle of the prayer she heard him speaking it in English.  He said he had not spoken in English but only in tongues.

A Foursquare pastor was preaching in Mexico and, when one little old Mexican woman without any teeth got filled with the Holy Spirit, she began praising God exuberantly in English.  She had never been to school and knew no English.

Jack Hayford sent some of his sermons on tape cassettes to a Baptist mission in Thailand. He received a letter of thanks which incidentally mentioned that part of the message in tongues given at the end of one of the sermons was in pure Thai and the interpretation was exactly what the Thai words meant.

Sermons and messages have been given in tongues where the local language was not known – such as when Mel Tari’s interpreter didn’t arrive in Indonesia in the 1960s and he was able to speak for an hour in tongues and be understood by the people there.