Differential oscillatory encoding of foreign speech

•Neural oscillations play a key role in speech perception.•Oscillatory patterns associated with native, foreign and unknown speech were studied.•Synchronization patterns are markedly different for native and foreign language. Neuronal oscillations play a key role in auditory perception of verbal input, with the oscillatory rhythms of the brain showing synchronization with specific frequencies of speech. Here we investigated the neural oscillatory patterns associated with perceiving native, foreign, and unknown speech. Spectral power and phase synchronization were compared to those of a silent context. Power synchronization to native speech was found in frequency ranges corresponding to the theta band, while no synchronization patterns were found for the foreign speech context and the unknown language context. For phase synchrony, the native and unknown languages showed higher synchronization in the theta-band than the foreign language when compared to the silent condition. These results suggest that neural synchronization patterns are markedly different for native and foreign languages.