Originally Answered: In Star Wars: The Force Awakens How can Rey understand BB-8? According to the vague information given in Star Wars: The Force Awakens : The Visual Dictionary, Rey learnt the language of Wookiees and droids by contact with off-worlders.
Most are quite intelligent, and some can even speak the human language, such as C-3PO. However, most droids, including R2-D2 and BB-8, "speak" a droid language through sequences of beeps and whistles. It is known as "Binary," and several humans in the Star Wars universe can understand it.
Rey was able to learn Shyriiwook due to her interaction with offworlders on Jakku. Beaumont Kin was another human with the Resistance who knew the language and translated for others, though his skills were somewhat out of practice as of the blockade of Kashyyyk and he struggled to understand other Wookiee dialects.
It's apparent in his bleeps and bloops in the Poe comic. Surprisingly, there's really real meaning in those bleeps and bloops: BB-8's communications in the series are actually written as dialogue in the script and then translated to droid noises.
A Teedo scavenger captured BB-8 in a net, causing the little droid to beep frantically for help. A young woman named Rey chased off the Teedo and freed the droid and then told BB-8 to go to Niima Outpost. But she then relented and allowed the frightened droid to spend the night inside the downed AT-AT she called home.
How Does Rey Know How to Speak Droid? - Star Wars Explained
How does Rey speak BB-8?
According to the vague information given in Star Wars: The Force Awakens : The Visual Dictionary, Rey learnt the language of Wookiees and droids by contact with off-worlders. She is also capable of speaking whatever languages the Teedos speak.
The knowledge that Rey was sold off for drinks makes it all the more understandable she would be reluctant to quickly give up BB-8. In that moment, she saw the droid in the same position she was as a child - helpless and at the mercy of someone else. Rey didn't want to resign BB-8 to a similar fate.
It's best not to think too hard about the “lives” droids lead in the Star Wars universe. Droids like C-3PO are beloved friends, but they're also built to serve their masters, and they can (and do) have their minds wiped at whim.
Luke Skywalker only figures it out in old age — he (and his uncle and aunt) need a translator to speak to their farm machinery and to understand R2D2 in the original movie, and in Empire he has to have R2's words translated on a screen in the cockpit of his X-wing.
In an interview with Wired, director J.J. Abrams refers to BB-8 as a “he,” while Neal Scanlan, the head of the creature shop at Lucasfilm, seems a bit more confused in his talk with EW: I'm still not sure, dare I say, whether BB-8 is male or female. BB-8 was female in our eyes.
Rey received guidance from the voices of past Jedi, including Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, who encourage her to rise and defeat the embodiment of evil. Ahsoka Tano's voice reached Rey through the Force, suggesting she must have rejoined the rankes of the Jedi before her death.
His answer was to create a new race called Ewoks, which is "Wookiee" with the syllables reversed and altered to resemble the name of a Native American people, the Miwok.
According to the official movie script, the orange and white spherical droid named BB-8 communicates in “BEEPS — FAST, MORSE CODE-LIKE SOUNDS” (p. 3). It is also described in the script as “SKITTERY.” BB-8 does not speak, so all of the captioned descriptions of BB-8 are nonspeech captions.
Like Sphero's other robotic balls, the BB-8 toy uses a gyroscope to work out which way is up, and accelerometers to determine when it's moving. Measurements from these sensors are used to make continuous adjustments so that the robot keeps its head.
Abrams also named the character, saying, "I named him BB-8 because it was almost onomatopoeia. It was sort of how he looked to me, with the 8, obviously, and then the two B's." The name was conceived early on in the film's production and was one of the few to remain unchanged.
R2-D2 uses whistles and beeps to say just about anything. That is his language, called “Astromech”, just as English is our language. Some of the things R2-D2 has said in Astromech, according to C-3PO's translation or reaction, are: “You're a mindless philosopher” (used an insult to C-3PO)
But only a few of the human characters in Star Wars can understand droids; Luke Skywalker wasn't the only one. Obi-Wan Kenobi was another human who could speak Binary, as well as Anakin, who shared the strongest relationship with R2-D2, as seen in the prequel trilogy and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The droid was also taken hostage on Jakku by a scavenger before being rescued by Rey. BB-8 then stood by Rey's side, trusting her for the duration of the trilogy. The fact that the droid was once again with its rescuer after a series of tumultuous events served as a symbolic full-circle moment.
It was later sheared in half by Ren and Rey, but the scavenger managed to repair the lightsaber. It remained in Rey's possession until her arrival on Exegol, where she relinquished it to a redeemed Ben Solo, placing the legendary blade back in the hands of a Skywalker, who used it to defeat the Knights of Ren.
Rey may have used the Force to read the mind of and understand BB-8. For example, she was able to read the mind of Kylo Ren in the "Mind-Force War" scene. It wasn't easy though. If she was able to do a task like that, then an untrained Force level so high, may have easily read the mind of a droid.
"One of the difficult things with animating something like that is you have to be very careful that it doesn't look like he's giving you some other sort of gesture! We moved all the pieces around to make sure it was very clearly a thumbs up over any other kind of 'salute. '"
