喜樂美語

核心畫面

You can think of understanding as what a person has once a thing has stopped being a closed door and become a room they can walk around inside. From out in the corridor you can only know that the room exists; once you are in it you can see where everything sits and how one thing leads to another. Every use of this word is some version of being inside rather than outside: inside a subject, inside a text, inside another person's situation — or, when two people are inside the same room, inside the same arrangement.

「understanding」可以想成：一件事本來是一扇關著的門，後來變成一個你可以走進去、在裡面走動的房間。站在走…更多收起「understanding」可以想成：一件事本來是一扇關著的門，後來變成一個你可以走進去、在裡面走動的房間。站在走廊上，你只知道有這個房間。走進去以後，你才看得見東西擺在哪裡、一件事怎麼帶出另一件事。這個字的各種意思，都像是同一個動作的不同版本——走進一門學問裡、走進一段文字裡、走進另一個人的處境裡；如果兩個人剛好站在同一個房間裡，那就成了兩個人講好的默契。

From the word’s history

The noun is understand plus the -ing ending that turns an action into a thing; the adjective is the same verb's present participle. Behind understand itself, Proto-Germanic *understandaną carried the sense 'to stand between, intercede, understand' — a picture of standing in among something rather than off to one side, which is close to the room image above.

這個名詞是 understand 加上 -ing，把動作變成一樣可以擁有的東西；形容詞則是同一個動詞的現在分詞。再往前，原始日耳曼語的 *understandaną 帶有「站到中間、介入、理解」的意思。可以想成：懂一件事，就是站到它中間去，而不是站在旁邊看——這跟上面那個「走進房間」的畫面是同一個方向。

Wiktionary entry for 'understanding' (kaikki extract 3f6f69a190036ae4, source_refs 805484379 / 805542803): understand + -ing; from Old English understanding / understandende, Proto-Germanic *understandaną 'to stand between, intercede, understand'.

Four branches

走進一件事裡：懂與理解力

這一組最貼近核心畫面：房間就是那件事，understanding 就是你在裡面看見的一切。一個是你走進了哪些房間，一個是你這個人能走進多深。

noun · B2

Knowledge of what something means or how it works, built up by learning about it or by living with it. It can be a rough general grasp of a subject or a deep and detailed one.

理解；認識

同一份文字，我這樣讀

同一個房間，兩個人走進去，看到的擺設可能不一樣。這一支就是把「我看到的版本」講出來，並且承認它只是我的版本。

noun · B2

Used with my, our, his and so on to say how one particular person reads something — what they take it to mean, which another person might read differently.

我的理解是…

兩個人站進同一個房間：講好的默契

當兩個人對同一件事看見的畫面對上了，事情就不必寫下來。這一支是把「懂」從一個人擴大成兩個人之間的東西。

noun · B2

An agreement between people that is not official or written down: they have settled between themselves how things will be, sometimes after a disagreement.

默契；共識

走進別人的處境：體諒

把那個房間換成「另一個人的人生」，就得到這一支。你站進去了，於是看見的是他的難處，而不是他的錯。

noun · B2

The ability to see why people behave as they do, and to be gentle with them rather than blaming them when they get something wrong.

體諒；諒解

原始詞典資料9 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

understandingnoun詞源 1/ʌndəˈstandɪŋ/

  • 1

    The act of one that understands or comprehends; the mental process of discernment of meaning.

    • There are certain things that defy human understanding.
    • The Ways of Heav’n are dark and intricate, Puzzled in Mazes, and perplext with Errors; Our Underſtanding traces ’em in vain, Loſt and bewilder’d in the fruitleſs Search; […]
  • 2

    Reason or intelligence; ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge; ability to infer.

    • She has a solid understanding of particle physics.
  • 3

    Opinion, judgement, or outlook.

    • It is the goneness of the Holocaust that produces the simultaneous profusion of discourses and understandings; the goneness is what opens up, what spurs, what unleashes the perpetual desire to do, to make, to rethink the Holocaust.
    • There is a multitude of theisms, many understandings of God, even within the same religious tradition.
  • 4

    An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.

    • I thought we had an understanding - you do the dishes, and I throw the trash.
  • 5

    An agreement of minds; harmony; something mutually understood or agreed upon.

    • The parties of the negotiation have managed to come to an understanding.
  • 6

    Sympathy.

    • He showed much understanding for my problems when he heard about my past.

understandingadj詞源 2/ʌndəˈstandɪŋ/

  • 1

    Showing compassion, tolerance, and forbearance; sympathetically aware.

  • 2

    datedKnowing; skilful.

這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：

資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。