There is no difference. We are an animal officially. But it's just that when animal comes to mind, people often think of some stupid fluffy creature. Due to the fact we are not fluffy and such people generally think 'Oh, we're not animals!' but in fact we are.
Chat with our AI personalities
Humans as you no are people and they can talk to communicate. If humans could not talk then we we would be very much like dogs, asking for food by going into the kitchen. Imagine you were a fish. They are underwater so they cannot talk but if they are angry with another wish they might go after it. Somethings like a parrot CAN talk and that's how they are alike! But parrots might not know a lot of English Some things like onomatopoeia's can explain how animals talk: Boom Crash Bow wow wow This is how different communications matter between people and animals.
We have much more in common with animals than we think. Like us, some animals can make tools. The only difference is that our tools are a lot more complex. Like us, some animals have a language. The only difference is that their language contain less than ten words.
Like animals, humans needs to eat, drink, sleep and reproduce.
your question is very vague and largely open to philosophical debate. however, maybe this quote from the worlds most famous biologist will help.
"There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties.... The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes a well-developed condition, in the lower animals."...Charles Darwin
The animals takes only what enough to them but the humen takes more than what they think and its not enough to us .