Animate what the character MEANS

Animate what the character MEANS, rather than what the character SAYS.
-Animation Mentor Planning Packet

It's so easy to literally interpret the dialogue and then choose poses based on specific words... but humans rarely say what they mean. When a little girl goes 'lets go climb a tree' what she could mean is 'come with me'. To make the animation less typical and mechanical, think about what they mean (how they feel, what they're thinking and what they want to achieve). The end result will be more thoughtful and less puppet like.

I think I get confused when I have to figure out what the character is thinking, I've done some shots with full inner dialogues written out, but it doesnt really help. 'Means' is the key word here. What does the character mean when it speaks?