Question: does animals understand what we say ??

Sam Tazzyman answered on 23 Jun 2011:

This is difficult to answer because it depends what you mean by “understand”. We can assume that animals are not as intelligent as humans and so they don’t understand words in the same complicated way that humans do. But the female pet cat my Mum had when I was young definitely knew what was going on when Mum shouted at her because she’d done something wrong! So although they don’t know English (or any language), the tone of voice and the familiar sounds and situations might be something they could pick up on and use to work out what to do. But I don’t think this is the same as “understanding” us, in the same way that if someone shouts at me in a language I don’t know, I don’t understand what the words mean, but I might be able to work out that they were angry with me.

Of course it also depends on the species of animal. While cats and dogs might be able to understand us in the above sense, it seems difficult to believe that ants or fish could.