I really like the suggestion of Animal Empathy being able to get you access to animal. That way if you really can't fit druid or 6 ranger into your build, you still have an option for understanding animals. (Not a fan of removing animal from ranger/druid just for the fact that druids shape shift and need animal. )
There have been many over the year that have built friendships with druids, or joined groves without having 6 ranger/3 druid levels to get Animal language; so it'd be nice to be able to learn it with a skill point investment.
Suggestion: Every point in Animal Empathy gives you a 2.5% chance to understand animal language that is spoken. So to fully 100% understand animals you'd need 40 points in Animal empathy.
If you include soft bonuses then it's possible to get 100% understanding, while even if you don't you'll have a 75% chance to understand a given phrase. Add on skill foci/epic skill foci would get you to 100% as well.
But, don't let them speak animal, just understand it.