How much do cats understand of what you’re saying?

Quite a lot. And that’s not just the impression of their doting owners.

Cats perform better than toddlers on a simple measure of language comprehension. The research, published Oct. 4 in the journal Scientific Reports, revealed that cats form associations between pictures and words around four times faster than human toddlers do.

Many cat-owners discover that if you use the word “cat” and “vet” in the same conversation, the household cat will go AWOL for a few days.

And some cats can talk. I’ve owned just such a cat. She was a rescue cat and her name was Berry (which she employed to announce herself when she entered the building) and she used to scare the hell out of visitors by saying “hallo” to them from the stairs. Perhaps it was more like “harro” – she had difficulty telling R from L.

At one time you could be burnt at the stake for owning a cat like that.

I’ve known of other talking cats. If they have anything in common (and I admit I’m going on a small sample size) it’s that they were all highly motivated to attend to what humans were saying. Having been maimed by a previous owner can contribute to that. Also they were absurdly fond of their current owners (no, it’s not all cupboard love: they can show gratitude too), who spent a lot of quality time with them.

In the wild, mother cats have a respectable repertoire of grunts and purrups they make to their kittens. So uttering single words is nothing alien to their nature. I had the impression Berry had a working vocabulary of at least 50 words, not all of which she could voice convincingly (she used to try them out on me to see how I’d respond). I’d say most of her words were mono- or disyllables, either names or imperatives (though strictly “hallo” is an interjection). But I never heard Berry string two words together. I’d be most surprised if any cat, big or small, had that capability.