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I am multilingual and consider myself a native Greek and English speaker. People like Ziad Fazah, born in Liberia, famously speak a total of 59 world languages. Can other creatures share that ability, though? Specifically, can dogs understand more than one language?
Well, wonder no more! As the NPR reports, new research published this week in the journal NeuroImage confirms that yes, they do.
When Laura Cuaya moved from Mexico to Hungary to work as a brain researcher at the Neuroethology of Communication Lab at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, she encountered a new language. In her words,
When I moved from Mexico to Hungary to start my post-doc research, all was new for me. Obviously, here, people in Budapest speak Hungarian. So you’ve had a different language, completely different for me.
The language was also new to her two dogs: Kun Kun and Odín.

The Little Prince
“People are super friendly with their dogs [in Budapest]. And my dogs, they are interested in interacting with people,” Cuaya said. “But I wonder, did they also notice people here … spoke a different language?”
Cuaya set out to find the answer. She and her colleagues designed an experiment with 18 volunteer dogs — including her two border collies — to see if they could differentiate between two languages. Kun Kun and Odín were used to hearing Spanish; the other dogs, Hungarian.
The dogs sat still within an MRI machine while listening to an excerpt from the story The Little Prince. They heard one version in Spanish, and another in Hungarian. Then the scientists analyzed the dogs’ brain activity.
Attila Andics leads the lab where the study took place and said researchers were looking for brain regions that showed a different activity pattern for one language versus the other.
“And we found a brain region — the secondary auditory cortex, which is a higher-level processing region in the auditory hierarchy — which showed a different activity pattern for the familiar language and for the unfamiliar language,” Andics said.
“This activity pattern difference to the two languages suggests that dogs’ brains can differentiate between these two languages. In terms of brain imaging studies, this study is the very first one which showed that a non-human species brain can discriminate between languages.”
They also found that older dogs brains’ showed bigger differences in brain activity between the two languages, perhaps because older dogs have more experience listening to human language.
Interesting, Nicholas. I had an Alsatian German Shepherd puppy in Italy and she could differentiate between English and Italian. We often commanded her in Italian and then English and she understood both the same. Animals are smarter than we think. 📚 Christine
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I’ve had similar experiences with my dogs, Christine! They sure are smart cookies 🙂
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Outsmarting us at times. 🐶🎶🐶
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Most interesting. I would never have thought of this.
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I only had because I live in a bilingual household with dogs who can understand us in both languages 🙂
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Interesting…my dog Happy Singh can understand Hindi and English.
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That’s one smart cookie 🙂
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I knew a Saint Bernard here in Bucharest who took the commands only in German, because he was taken from Brașov, a city with more local German population.
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Lol – that’s funny. Also, I know Brasov – I almost ended up taking a job there in 2015 🙂
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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Fascinating to muse on! Cheers.
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Thank you, Joy 🙂
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This certainly is fascinating research, Nicholas. I’m no expert, and I could be wrong, but I wonder if rather than actually understanding the words used to their dogs, they learn to understand the intonation of the commands [or other communications], similarly perhaps to the way children learn, prior to understanding the meaning of the words themselves? They associate the intonation of their name with themselves, for example. In this case, it might only need a short adjustment period for a dog to learn the significance of a different intonation in a new language? Calling Doctor Dolittle…….. 😉 Cheers, Jon.
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You’ll be pleased to know that the researchers are continuing their study to answer questions such as this, Jon! I’ll let you know what they find 🙂
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Wow! Never thought about it. Its so interesting to know.
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Thank you, Sharma! I’m glad you thought so, too 🙂
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I don’t think they should put dogs in an MRI scanner to discover such things. Most of us already know that dogs adapt. As Jon says, it is much more about tone, volume, intonation, and body language than spoken languages.
If I tell Ollie to look for a deer in the woods, he rushes off to look for one.
But then if I tell him to look for a Triceratops, he does the same thing.
It’s about how I say it, and the location we are in. He would never have heard the word Triceratops before. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Lol – I’m gonna try that with Izzy, as somehow I doubt that Boo (the cat) would bother with me, no matter what language I use…
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This is fascinating. Thanks for sharing Nicholas.
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Thanks! So glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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I wondered about this. My dogs are Spanish rescue dogs and I’m sure they must have been spoken to in Spanish in their early days. However, they respond very well to our English words. My French friend whispers sweet nothings in Dot’s ear and she is in heaven. Dogs are very smart and adapt quickly.
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They really are amazing creatures!
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Future generations of student can say, her professor was a labrador. 😉 Sorry! Thanks for the very interesting information, Nicholas! I never thought this could be true. I am a little bit late with this, but let me wish you and your whole family a wonderful and blessed New Year! Best wishes, Michael
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Sorry, you caught me! students and their professor …
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Thank you so much, Michael! May 2022 bring you nothing but joy 🙂
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Lets hope so, Nicholas! Have a beautiful weekend! xx Michael
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Reblogged this on NEW BLOG HERE >> https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
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My wife and I often say our dogs speak/bark in Welsh and English as both were born in North Wales, where we lived for a few years. So, they grew up hearing a bit of Welsh. As for commands, we use English, although with different ‘accents’ as I’m a Brit and my wife is American and we now live in the US. Sometimes my wife gives commands in Spanish – her first husband was Mexican (and I’m Anglo-Chilean).
Although I agree with beetleypete (http://beetleypete.wordpress.com/) about intonation of commands, I’m not sure my wife’s remain the same in different languages.
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I agree. In fact, I *know* that they understand the words as well as the intonation (much like humans, I guess), as I’ve experimented with giving Izzy commands in a very flat voice and she seems to understand just fine what I mean.
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Pingback: *Press This* Are Animals Multilingual? #218 | Its good to be crazy Sometimes
Really fascinating! Thank you
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Many thanks, Rebecca! I’m glad you enjoyed it as much as I did 🙂
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And I have no difficulty in believing that. We underestimate the intelligence of animals, in my opinion. If you say ‘sit’ and your dog sits, isn’t that understanding language? If you say something to your child, and he/she responds appropriately, we have no hesitation in saying they understand the words, but if an animal does the same, we say he recognises and responds to tone of voice, or body language.
And if a creature uses the same sound for a particular thing always, and never for something else, then isn’t it a word?
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I’ve often wondered about that. A friend once challenged my assertion that my dog understands words. He argued she was just following my tone or my hands to see what I wanted her to do. So, I stood up, put my hands behind my back, and I told the dog in as neutral a voice as I could muster, “sit.” She did 🙂
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This is interesting. I think animals do understand more than we might realize.
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Absolutely. Also, I can see the difference in personality between our various pets. Some are kinder, others are smarter, etc.
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