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We investigated how auditory language processing is modified by a listener’s previous experience with the specific activities mentioned in the speech. In particular, we asked whether neural responses related to language processing depend on one’s experience with the action-based content of this language. Ice-hockey players and novices passively listened to sentences about ice-hockey and everyday situations during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). When listening to action-related sentences, neural activation in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) depended on one’s actual (physical) experience with the action described in the sentence: hockey experts showed greater activity in these regions than novices for hockey sentences, but not for everyday-action sentences. Thus, personal experience with linguistic content modulated activity both in regions associated with …