LEARN + JAPANESE / Note 77 JLPT N5
Know, Understand (知る・分かる)
分かる means to understand or comprehend something, a rule, a language, a feeling. 知っている means to know a specific fact, person, or place, information you already have stored, not something you’re processing in the moment.
Tanaka understands English.
My younger sister doesn't understand the rules of soccer.
In Real Life
分かる always takes が for the thing being understood, and it describes comprehension happening, a rule making sense, a language becoming readable. It’s not about having met or memorized something, it’s about it clicking.
Lin knows a good restaurant.
Ken doesn't know my younger brother.
In Real Life
知っている takes を, and the negative is 知りません or 知らない, never 知っていません. This is one of the more common trip-ups: 知る describes gaining information as an action, and once you already know something the state is 知っている, but denying that state uses the plain verb’s negative, not the ている form’s negative.
Vocabulary
| Japanese | English |
|---|---|
| rule | |
| feeling | |
| phone number | |
| instruction manual | |
| how to use | |
| long ago, in the past | |
| singer | |
| international student | |
| newspaper | |
| all over the world | |
| to move house | |
| to hear, ask | |
| experience | |
| information | |
| to notice, realize | |
| to remember, have memorized | |
| to forget | |
| to comprehend | |
| common sense | |
| detailed, knowledgeable about |