Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is lesson 143. Today we're going to look at
the difference between realize and understand.
Again this is one sometimes students mix up. Let's look at the note here first. If you realize something is
true, you suddenly become aware of a fact or the real meaning of something. All right the
key part of course I underlined in the red here, means you suddenly realize
you've suddenly understand that so oh I got it that now I remember it. That's the
way we mean it with you realize something. If you understand something
you know what it means. Okay so let's look at especially some of these examples
where student might say the wrong one. To know what a baby is thinking is not easy
to realize. No, that would not be correct. Here you should say to know what a baby
is thinking is not easy to understand. This isn't something that you just
suddenly figured out or something to understand you say first of all you're
saying that you don't understand it. So you definitely would not use realize. This idea didn't
suddenly come to your head. Or you can suddenly come to understand
something. So here you should just use to understand. All right , let's look at the second one. Most people don't
realize how cryptocurrencies work. Most people don't really understand how
cryptocurrencies work. You know cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin of course. So
that's the way we would say we would not use realize it, It's not like you suddenly
understand it. They just don't understand it. All right
and here's a couple of examples where we would use realize. I suddenly realized I
forgot to take my keys. Yeah maybe already left your house and you say ' Oh my God I forgot to take my keys. "
Then you realize it. You suddenly realized it. Ah if you knew it before time, you wouldn't have
done it. But now you just realize that. It came to your head. All right the second
one here I didn't realize I left my home without any cash until I tried to buy
something. Yes maybe you changed your pants, maybe you forgot to move
some cash or some money with you. So maybe it wasn't until you were out you
want to go buy something " Oh my God I didn't put the cash in my pocket. " So you
suddenly realized. You suddenly became aware of this.That's when you realize
you wouldn't say you didn't understand. You had no cash. You you didn't
realize it. You suddenly didn't know. You suddenly became aware of something. Okay I
hope you got it. So realize it's basically you suddenly become aware or
suddenly figure out something. "Understand' means you already know it. Okay thank you for your time. Bye.