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Understanding vs Learning - What's the difference?

understanding | learning |

In uncountable terms the difference between understanding and learning

is that understanding is sympathy while learning is accumulated knowledge.

In countable terms the difference between understanding and learning

is that understanding is a reconciliation of differences while learning is something that has been learned.

As an adjective understanding

is showing compassion.

understanding

Noun

  • (uncountable) Mental, sometimes emotional process of comprehension, assimilation of knowledge, which is subjective by its nature.
  • (countable) Reason or intelligence, ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge, ability to infer.
  • (countable) Opinion, judgement or outlook.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.}}
  • (countable) An informal contract, mutual agreement.
  • (countable) A reconciliation of differences.
  • (uncountable) Sympathy.
  • All that people individually sense and feel of themselves.
  • See also

    * intellection

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Showing compassion.
  • Verb

    (head)
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […];  […]; or perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment.}}

    learning

    English

    Verb

    (head)
  • I'm learning to ride a unicycle.

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • (uncountable) An act in which something is learned.
  • Learning to ride a unicycle sounds exciting.
  • (uncountable) Accumulated knowledge.
  • The department head was also a scholar of great learning .
  • (countable) Something that has been learned
  • * {{quote-news, year=2007, date=April 5, author=Stuart Elliott, title=Online Experiment for Print Magazine, work=New York Times citation
  • , passage=“We’ll take the learnings and apply them to the rest of our business.” }}

    Usage notes

    Countable sense “thing learned” often used in plural form (m); see for details.

    Derived terms

    * book-learning * higher learning * learning curve * learning disability * learning by doing