Looking Back and Looking Forward 2010 & 2011

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Alex

And they don't understand the words unless you've said it to them many times and very carefully tied it to a specific real world stimulus.

Yep, pretty much how language is acquired. Although dogs are at a disadvantage to their human counterparts in that they lack the physical capability of mimicking the sounds they hear to test which ones will have the same effect. So yay dogs for managing to learn anyway.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Yep, pretty much how language is acquired.

Not really. Vocabulary and language are two different things. The former is simply a catalog of labels, the latter a system of using those labels. Dogs can acquire the former, not so much on the latter.