Ferrets actually learn words easily.  They simply need to have them
repeated often enough in context, have the vocabulary and sentence
structure kept simple, etc. -- the same rules for teaching children
most effectively.
 
To teach body parts you can use tricks like "Mommy kiss belly-belly" then
kiss the belly and similar approaches for other sections of the anatomy.
"More-more" is an easy one to teach and they do generalize it well.
Today I was kissing Whizbang's belly and I said "Whizbang, give mommy
more-more belly-belly" and she threw her upper body back and arched her
belly for me.  They can even learn conditionals with enough repetition.
A useful one is "First medicine, then treat."  That really can help ease
medicine times.
 
My long suspicion is that ferret ancestors needed to understand
vocalizations and sounds of prey species as well as of ferrets and of
some possible predators in pitch black burrows so could be pre-adapted
for being better at sounds/vocal analysis than some other species are.
 
Except when a ferret is partly deaf or deaf we've found that most ferrets
learn vocabulary easily if it is just facilitated by staying simple and
using repetition in context.
 
We've had Steve say several times to Meltdown, "Meltdown, get Warp, then
Meltdown get treat" then had Meltiw go down, and drag a sleeping Warp
from under the bed, deposit her on Steve's foot, then look Steve in the
eye and lick her chomps.
 
We've said to Hjalmar, "Hjalmar, you stashed your fruitcake." only to
have Fritter (who was our best at language) get up and check Hjalmar's
favorite stash places instead of her own till she found and ate his
treat.
 
Hjalmar knew the work "Where's" very well and when we said, "Where's
Hjalmar?" it would initiate a game of hide and seek.  He never quite
understood that we could still see him when he couldn't see us, though,
so sometimes he would hide his upper body under blankets but his rear end
would be hanging out and his tail wagging with excitement of playing his
favorite game.
 
Ruffle was seriously intellectually and physically impaired but she
learned a few word including a handful of body parts and she loved to be
asked to point out the body parts on a toy ferret.  "Where ferret-mousie
bum?", for example.  She would get very proud of herself.
 
Ashling was a big one for having conversations and she would shake her
head "No" which a few ferrets here have done, give nose bumps "Yes" which
most have learned to do (and she had a strong yes where she would then
hold her nose against a person's cheek or streak it down the face) and
when she was very serious she would do something none of our others have
done -- she would nod.
 
Words are incredibly useful and fun tools!  Besides, it really is EASY to
teach them words.
 
As far as being bilingual is concerned; you don't know till you try.
 ---
 
If you use window tops don't have curtains.  (Having had a climber
almost (I grabbed her legs.) slip between and window and a secure metal
screen that way I speak from experience.)
[Posted in FML issue 4498]