Understanding: We explain what understanding is, what comprehensiveness means and other meanings of the term. Also, examples of its use in sentences.
What is understanding?
Understanding, from a very general point of view, is the action or ability to know the meaning or motivation of things. It is a word derived from the verb “to understand” and that has its roots in the Latin word comprehendere, composed in turn of the prefix con– (“next to”) and the words prae (“before”) and hendere (“to catch” or “to hold”). In this way, understanding can be understood as the action of capturing “the before” of something, that is, understanding where it comes from or what its reason for being is.
The word “understanding” is used in many different contexts, the main one being that which has to do with communication. When we communicate with someone, we are sending and receiving messages that must be captured and understood, that is, comprehended. You must read about Biodiversity once.
That is why if they speak to us in another language (that is, using a code that we do not know) or even if they speak to us in our own but in a very complicated, convoluted or strange way, we usually respond that “we have not understood.” And in this sense, understanding becomes a synonym for verbs such as understand, grasp and interpret.
The above applies, naturally, to both spoken and written language. The ability to understand a text depends on basic factors such as the language in which it is written, but also on the linguistic capacity (that is, the level of language use) and the previous knowledge of the person reading it. In this way, a person can read a scientific text, for example, written in a very technical language, and still not understand anything, that is, not be able to grasp the message.
On the other hand, reading comprehension is the ability of people to read and interpret a text, capturing the deeper layers of its meaning. The greater the understanding, the more levels of meaning can be grasped, while the less understanding, the person remains in the superficial layers of meaning.
Understanding and comprehensiveness
The term “understanding” is also used in other situations, which have to do with putting oneself in another’s shoes, or in understanding or justifying the actions or decisions of others. Thus, for example, an understanding person is one who often puts themselves in the place of others and is willing to listen and reason out the motivations of others.
In fact, when we face a dilemma and look for a friend who understands us, what we long for is precisely someone who knows how to understand our motivations and who puts themselves in our place to help us make a decision.
In this sense, understanding is associated with empathy and tolerance, rather than with the intellectual capacity to decipher a message; and for this, the word comprehensiveness is often used, in order to distinguish empathy from rational and logical understanding. Maybe you should definitely read about World Power once.
Other uses of the term
The word understanding also has more technical and specialized uses, related to philosophy and the social sciences. In this context it is used as a synonym for “interpret” or “understand,” in the sense of a deep intellectual operation, and the German word verstehen (precisely, “understand”) is often used to distinguish this specific sense in texts on philosophy, history, and other disciplines.
This meaning of understanding differs from the ordinary one, furthermore, in that it proposes an interpretive method, which pays attention to the internal aspects of the action studied, that is, to its purpose and intention, rather than to the objective features with which it is usually associated with the exact sciences.
Examples of the use of the word “understanding”
The following are some examples of the use of the word “understanding” in various sentences and contexts:
- My parents do not understand the predicament I am in.
- The plot of that novel is impossible to understand.
- I understand Miriam, I’ve been in similar situations.
- Do you understand the exam instructions?
- I don’t have anyone who understands me.
