Question: why can we learn diferent languages, figure out what theyre all saying but we cant work out what animals are saying? i have a cat and have done for a few months now, i can tell when hes happy or sad or annoyed or tired and everything, but when he meows i dont have a clue? and i dont no anybody or ever heard of anybody who does know what they say? why cant we? is it impossible?

Tim Fosker answered on 21 Jun 2011:

Hi @nhanlon12

Thanks for a fantastic question! I have answered a question on how we learn our first words which may interest you (http://ias.im/58.1528). Animals don’t seem to learn to communicate in the same way as humans do, and animal communication doesn’t seem to be as complex as human language. Animals seem to rely on a number of ‘calls’ as warnings and to attract mates. Some of these calls can be figured out by humans based on when they occur – like if your cat ‘hisses’, both you and other cats will know what that means.

It is sometimes difficult for the auditory part of the human brain to detect differences in animal calls, the calls aren’t really designed for us.
Rather than trying to train yourself to understand your cat you may want to let your cat train you! Cats can easily associate behaviours like a call with a reward. If when a cat purrs they get given food they will soon learn to purr at the owners when they are hungry.

I can tell you that my old cat trained me very well 🙂