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Vicissitude
Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Location: Chef School
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 Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 8:22 am Post subject: Does Your Dog Know English? |
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As acute as a dog�s hearing is, we ought to give them a little more credit for understanding our language. We know we can teach our dogs verbal commands, but many dogs learn to understand words we haven�t purposely taught them. We may find ourselves saying, �Let�s go for a walk� as we pick up the leash. The dog first associates the leash with the promise of going for a walk. He may also pick up on the word �walk� without his owner making a move toward the door or picking up the leash.
A delightful mutt named Midnight was very tuned into when his family was about to go on a trip to Arkansas to visit grandparents. This was the most exciting event in the world to Midnight because it meant a long car ride and upon arrival, a huge pasture to run in, and cows to boss around (he felt he must protect the family from those giant beasts.)
Midnight would know that a trip to Arkansas was eminent the day before when suitcases were being packed, and would get very anxious. When bags were taken to the car before dawn, he would go insane barking and jumping at the front door. His family attempted to pack in secret, but he was smarter than that. He started picking up on plans for a trip just through the family�s conversation about it. The words �trip� or �Arkansas� would set him off. The kids were told not say those words around the dog.
On one such trip, he actually got out the door while the family was loading up and went straight to the car, sat in his designated spot and didn�t make a sound. The humans felt really stupid. After that, each trip started with saying to Midnight, �Want to go to Arkansas?� and letting him out to the car. Midnight would sit, quiet and content, while the family packed the car in peace.
Astute owners who notice their dog�s linguistic talent have tried to develop it further by teaching words rather than commands. Some dogs are able to find their ball when the owner says, �Where�s your ball?� Some dogs appear to have an extensive vocabulary and can follow detailed directions like, �go to my desk and bring me my pen.� While this ability astounds dog owners, and anyone watching, scientists have tested dogs who show such prowess, and the findings are less or more impressive, depending upon how you look at it.
Dogs can learn many words, without a doubt, especially names of objects or commands. But to follow more complex directions, dogs rely on other skills. According to Stanley Coren in How to Speak Dog, a dog will listen to your words, and watch your subtle, even subconscious body language, and then add his most reasonable guess to figure out what you want him to do.
In the above command, for example, the dog may know what a pen is because his owner taught him that word-object association. The person giving the direction made a subconscious glance in the direction of the desk, which told the dog which way to go. Most dogs are masters at reading body language. The dog goes to the desk and sees the pen. The most reasonable and obvious thing for a good, well-trained dog to do with an object, is to retrieve it. This creates a very convincing illusion that the dog understood English well enough to follow a complex command.
In How to Speak Dog, to test the theory that dogs rely more on our body language than words, a dog was told to go to one place, but the person speaking glanced in a different direction. The dog always went to where the person was looking.
Dogs may never have a complete command of our spoken language, but their ability and interest in listening to our words and observing our body language in order to do what we ask of them, to ultimately please us, is really truly impressive. |
Dogs are great - they have better listening and comprehension skills than many people... |
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Toon Army
Joined: 12 Mar 2007
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Buff
Joined: 07 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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My parents' dog definitely knows some English words. She knows "car" "plate" "sheep" (They live on a sheep farm and she's a working dog.) and the names of family members. Just to rile her up, they'll sometimes say "Where's Buff?" and she'll run to the front door or jump up on the couch to look out the window. Or sometimes they'll say my name when we're on the phone or something and she'll flop over for a belly rub, which is how I always greet her.
Also, if she hears a doorbell on TV she'll run to the door. My parents don't have a doorbell, so we figured it's something her mom must have taught her when she was a puppy before we got her.
Smart dog. |
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krats1976
Joined: 14 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:49 pm Post subject: Re: Does Your Dog Know English? |
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| Vicissitude wrote: |
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Some dogs are able to find their ball when the owner says, �Where�s your ball?� |
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My puppy does this. He's so cute. I say, "where's your ball?" and he immediately looks around then darts off to find it.
But, I'm pretty sure he's picking up on tone and non-verbal cues more than words.
Even so, I like to tell people that I have a Korean dog with a Spanish name that only understands English.
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SuperFly
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Location: In the doghouse
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| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Hi. I speak 2.5 languages and I'm learning Korean. Not so hard!! |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:27 pm Post subject: Re: Does Your Dog Know English? |
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| Vicissitude wrote: |
| Dogs are great - they have better listening and comprehension skills than many people... |
I'm sorry, were you saying something? Didn't quite get that ... |
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ChuckECheese
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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My dog can understand English far better than most of my students.  |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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| ChuckECheese wrote: |
| My dog can understand English far better than most of my students. |
Whoa, maybe you gotta work on your teaching skills ...
Hey, just kidding, put down that stick, easy there, big guy ...
Seriously, ALL my kindie students know how to come here, shake hands, fetch, roll over, play dead ... |
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Vicissitude
Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Location: Chef School
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| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:33 pm Post subject: Re: Does Your Dog Know English? |
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| The Bobster wrote: |
| Vicissitude wrote: |
| Dogs are great - they have better listening and comprehension skills than many people... |
I'm sorry, were you saying something? Didn't quite get that ... |
What's been your experience with dogs? I find that they have excellent listening and comprehension skills whereas it's a real crap shoot with people. I taugt a lot of very dull students in Korea, you know the ones who can't understand simple questions such as, 'what is your name' or 'how are you today?' It had nothing to do with my teaching skills when on the first day of class, they just don't understand English even though they've supposedly studied the subject for years. My guess is that they were asleep in their schools during English class. These are students who would cheat on everything, and failed every single uni. exam, quite proudly because they just didn't give a hoot about education. So yes, I have encountered dogs that understood English better than many Koreans students. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 3:01 am Post subject: Re: Does Your Dog Know English? |
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| Vicissitude wrote: |
| The Bobster wrote: |
| Vicissitude wrote: |
| Dogs are great - they have better listening and comprehension skills than many people... |
I'm sorry, were you saying something? Didn't quite get that ... |
What's been your experience with dogs? I find that they have excellent listening and comprehension skills whereas it's a real crap shoot with people. I taugt a lot of very dull students in Korea, you know the ones who can't understand simple questions such as, 'what is your name' or 'how are you today?' It had nothing to do with my teaching skills when on the first day of class, they just don't understand English even though they've supposedly studied the subject for years. My guess is that they were asleep in their schools during English class. These are students who would cheat on everything, and failed every single uni. exam, quite proudly because they just didn't give a hoot about education. So yes, I have encountered dogs that understood English better than many Koreans students. |
How many people have you met who lived in the U.S. and took years of Spanish and can't speak Spanish? So many Canadians whose first language is English can't speak French? It is easier to learn a language if you have the desire. Most Koreans don't learn quality English in their public schools. That is changing, but that is generally true. So what do you expect?
Back to dogs, well they are very smart animals. At least, some breeds are pretty smart. They even have supposedly have sharp senses where they can feel when their owner is going home. I am not surprised that they can understand words. They do have well-developed brains.
They are man's best friend for a reason. |
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Ryst Helmut
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
Location: In search of the elusive signature...
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 6:52 am Post subject: |
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Side note: My family has always used languages that the average resident of our area did not speak, for our dogs (for the purposes on keeping others from being able to command our pooches).
So, upon getting my baby girl here....I decided on English. When we moved Stateside (Florida) we weren't sure if we were going to continue with English (there are still some English speakers there), but ended up with retraining our girl with Korean.
Now that we are back in Korea we again use English...anywho, the point is that it never ceases to amaze Koreans that a DOG understands English.  
I told my students that western dogs were smarter than Korean dogs. They didn't care for that.....but then again, I didn't say it for their amusement.
!shoosh,
Ryst |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:26 am Post subject: Re: Does Your Dog Know English? |
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| Vicissitude wrote: |
| The Bobster wrote: |
| Vicissitude wrote: |
| Dogs are great - they have better listening and comprehension skills than many people... |
I'm sorry, were you saying something? Didn't quite get that ... |
What's been your experience with dogs? I find that they have excellent listening and comprehension skills whereas it's a real crap shoot with people. |
It was a joke. I gave every indication possibble. Relax. Calm down. Heel.
Know what dogs are really good at? Love. They are experts about it. Thing is, they are so easy, half the time we human friends of theirs don't deserve even 5% of what they can give.
Gonna say something really amazing and radical and suggest that teaching ESL might be a little harder than getting a dog to love you. Try getting your students to love you, when that happens you will be amazed ... thing is, with your students, you will have to deserve it.
Smiles, y'all. |
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Vicissitude
Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Location: Chef School
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Ryst Helmut wrote: |
Side note: My family has always used languages that the average resident of our area did not speak, for our dogs (for the purposes on keeping others from being able to command our pooches).
So, upon getting my baby girl here....I decided on English. When we moved Stateside (Florida) we weren't sure if we were going to continue with English (there are still some English speakers there), but ended up with retraining our girl with Korean.
Now that we are back in Korea we again use English...anywho, the point is that it never ceases to amaze Koreans that a DOG understands English.
I told my students that western dogs were smarter than Korean dogs. They didn't care for that.....but then again, I didn't say it for their amusement.
!shoosh,
Ryst |
 Koreans are amazed that the dog knows English but they aren't equally amazed that the dog knows Korean.  |
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Vicissitude
Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Location: Chef School
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:11 pm Post subject: Re: Does Your Dog Know English? |
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| The Bobster wrote: |
| Vicissitude wrote: |
| The Bobster wrote: |
| Vicissitude wrote: |
| Dogs are great - they have better listening and comprehension skills than many people... |
I'm sorry, were you saying something? Didn't quite get that ... |
What's been your experience with dogs? I find that they have excellent listening and comprehension skills whereas it's a real crap shoot with people. |
It was a joke. I gave every indication possibble. Relax. Calm down. Heel.
Know what dogs are really good at? Love. They are experts about it. Thing is, they are so easy, half the time we human friends of theirs don't deserve even 5% of what they can give.
Gonna say something really amazing and radical and suggest that teaching ESL might be a little harder than getting a dog to love you. Try getting your students to love you, when that happens you will be amazed ... thing is, with your students, you will have to deserve it.
Smiles, y'all. |
 awwww. I'm speechless! |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Dogs are very cool. I spent alot of time with my grandad when he was training sheep dogs and they learn very quick. I still have one of his dog whistles, although my dad sticks to the come by(go left), away to me(go right), etc verbal commands. Dogs can learn quite a bit of vocabulary. |
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