I've been studying French on DuoLingo for around 3 years, my wife razzed me for the first year or so because they hadn't covered how to ask where the bathroom is yet. (I will note that they've redone many of the lessons since I started and 'Où est les toilettes' is covered sooner than it was when I started.)
My husband is studying by watching and reading German news online. We occasionally use some of the words so that the dog does not know what we are talking about. However, she now knows that Kase is cheese, so we've had to switch to Fromage.
This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
Dogs and cats understand a lot of words, more than most pet owners believe. We've got our security system and doors set so that they play a message that can be heard in other rooms when they're opened. We had a cat who recognized several of the messages and would head towards that door to be let out, even if he was on another floor. And all of our cats over the years recognized the messages for the garage overhead doors and would head towards the back hall to greet whoever was coming home.
When we lived in Germany, my husband spent a lot of time with the local Jagermeister, (or "hunt master" which we might interpret as forest ranger) who also raised hunting dogs and entered them in competitions. My husband had to learn the German commands for when he showed the dogs. Today, my son is a K-9 officer, and he uses mostly German language to communicate with his shepherds and malinois (the family pets as well as the working dogs).