Cats understand what you say, but do they like it?

Have you ever had the feeling that your cat only pretends to not understand what you’re saying? You could be right. Although cats can’t understand everything, they can recognise the most common words. It is however not only about the words, but also the human intentions, actions and emotions. Cats can feel all of it.

At the University of Tokyo it was found that if you use a calm or soft voice, cats are more likely to respond, your tone and volume seem to be the key, but they can understand a lot more. Cats can understand and recognise their names and also when you’re calling them, but they might just choose not to respond.

• As a rule of thumb, your cat likes it when you talk to them.

If you raise your voice, use unusual body language, aggressiveness or have hidden bad intentions, your cat will know it and no amount of nice words would change that. The more you talk to your cat, the more you and your cat learn about each other and in general, about your relationship. With a cats natural ability to differentiate very tiny differences in your voice, they will be able to recognise more and more about you.

• Cats can usually recognise 20 to 40 words. Some can even understand up to 50.

According to further scientific research, more than just understanding words, they even have the ability to associate different things with different words in the very same way humans do. Besides their ability to understand human language, they also have their own language that could be partially translated. I will however post a different article about CAT – HUMAN vocabulary.