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Both 知る and わかる get used for "know", "understand", "learn", "find out", and various other concepts. How do you know which to use when? Are there any rules to help you decide?
Additionally, both of these verbs regularly appear in several different forms:
知る、知った、知っている
わかる、わかった、わかっている
In what situations do you use each form, and how does the meaning change?
As stated in some of the other answers, the fundamental difference is that 分{わ}かる is "to understand", and 知{し}る is "to know", which helps differentiate the two as concepts. However, I think that doesn't fully answer your question.
Many years ago, early in my Japanese learning, when a Japanese friend asked me what I was going to do tomorrow, I said 「知{し}らない」, and my friend laughed. She explained that it would be more common to answer 「分{わ}からない」.
This would be opposite to English, where our answer would be that we "don't know" what we're going to do tomorrow, which is why I thought to say it that way. To say we "don't understand" what we're going to do tomorrow could be awkward enough to get a laugh.
After exploring the reasons why she laughed, I believe the difference comes down to a concept of 内{うち}, "inside", versus 外{そと}, "outside", which is a large and useful concept to grasp in Japanese culture and language. It's too big to go fully go into here, but a very short description is that in Japanese culture there is a high degree of sensitivity to how some people and information is part of the "inner circle" of your life, and other people and information are not included.
As it relates to 分{わ}かる and 知{し}る, you can think of it like 分{わ}かる has an implication of your personal knowledge, the things that relate to you, the things a person can decide on, etc... Only you can "know" what you do tomorrow, or decide on it, or reflect on it. It is 「内{うち}のこと」, so to speak. Thus, 分{わ}かる is the appropriate term for such matters.
Whereas 知{し}る is for the things that are facts independent of you, like the atomic weight of cesium, what the airspeed velocity of a sparrow is, how Korean and Japanese chopsticks differ, etc... 「外{そと}のこと」.
That said, it would be a mistake to draw a hard line to separate what is personal knowledge and what is a fact in the universe.
You could use 分{わ}かる for the airspeed velocity of a sparrow, if it was something you studied and knew about. By learning about it, you develop a relationship to the information, and it becomes 内{うち}のこと. If, for example, you were a professor of ornithology at Tokyo University and had done your dissertation on sparrow flight speeds.
In an opposite situation, you could use 知{し}らない for something that might ordinarily be thought of as 内{うち}のこと. For example, using 知{し}らない to say that you don't know what your father is doing tomorrow. However, by saying that what your father is doing is 外{そと}のこと, you are conveying that this is something external to you, which seems cold since you're talking about your dad. It says something about your relationship as well as your knowledge.
As a result, there can be an implication if "I don't care" interwoven into the use of 知{し}らない in some situations. My friend laughed at me saying 知{し}らない for what I am going to do tomorrow, because it's as if the next day's schedule is some kind of established fact that I have not cared enough to study. Even more extreme than not knowing what my father is going to do, I have a disconnect to my own life.
Even though it might be that what happens tomorrow is contingent on circumstances beyond my control, like my boss calling me in for work or an asteroid destroying my city. It's still up to me to react to what happens, to own the knowledge, and convey it to you. What will happen tomorrow is information that flows through me, so it is 内{うち}のこと.
Further, 内{うち}のこと isn't always your 内{うち}のこと, but it can be somebody's. In the news, they often report information using 分{わ}かる to convey that the information comes via someone else, and so responsibility for the information is not on the reporter. Similar to how in English we would use terms like "alleged", "revealed", "reported", and other terms that pass the buck. The news is often other people's 内{うち}のこと.
Of course when it comes right down to it, there will be a big, smudgy, greyish boundary between the two concepts. No doubt people could come up with a many borderline cases where one or the other might equally apply. I think it's the kind of thing that native speakers might disagree about which is more correct in certain specific circumstances.
Hope that helps.
I am a native Japanese, and I discussed this today. To be honest, this was quite interesting for us. I see many good answers here. The concept of "inside or outside" in another answer strikes close to a good point. But, I think that answer is a little bit confused because it fails to understand that "to know" is a stative verb but 「知る」is not. A stative verb is a verb which describes state of something. On the other hand,「知る」is a dynamic word, which describes changes.「知る」is "to get/come to know" not "to know." "to know" is 「知っている」. This also happens to "to have" and 「持つ」.
Let's check some examples.
私はその時にそれを知った。(I didn't know it just before that time, and I knew it just after that time.)
I knew it at that time. (私はその時それを知っていた。)
私はその時にそれを持った。(I didn't have it just before that time, and I had it just after that time.)
I had it at that time. (私はその時それを持っていた。)
So, first of all, there are huge differences between Japanese and English. And, these lead you to the idea of "inside or outside." 「知る」often happens when something comes in.
On the other hand,「分かる」is a stative potential verb. It basically describes someone's ability.
Sometimes, it is possible to use both「知る」and「分かる」. For example, "Do you know this Kanji?" can be translated to both「この漢字、知ってる?」and「この漢字、分かる?」 But sometimes it is not possible to use them interchangeably or the meaning changes.
「知る」is related to perception and sense. This is the broader concept of hear, read, see, learn, etc. which makes someone sure about it. So,「知ってる」means "「知る」has happened and the effect still continues."
「分かる」is related to classification and distinguish. If you have an idea, or if you can explain, link or conclude something, you「分かる」.
I guess the best way to know the difference is to make many examples and compare them!
Taro pointed Jiro, and asked Hanako "Do you know him?"
The sentence 2 can be natural if 太郎 suspects 花子 loses her memory or if 次郎 is in a panda costume or if 次郎 and 花子 have not seen for a long long time or if 次郎's face has changed. On the other hand, sentence 1 can be natural in more general cases. It basically means "Do you know this person?"
In this case,
Suppose that there was a cake on a table, but it disappeared at night.
In this case,
Do you know what you are going to do tomorrow? No.
Actually, the sentence 1 can be natural, for example, if you are a prisoner. You are not going to decide what you are going to do tomorrow, but someone will order you to do something. You can use the sentence 2 in either case.
In this case,
"I felt that I knew that face, and now I know who he is."
「あれ、Alice と Bob ってどういう間柄か知ってるよね?」"Wait, do you know the relationship between Alice and Bob?"
「知らない。」"No, I do not know."
「Bob のお母さんが Catharine っていうの知ってる?」"Do you know that Bob's mother is Catharine?"
「知ってる。」"I know."
「Catharine と Alice は双子の姉妹なんだよ。」"Catharine and Alice are twins."
「へえ、はじめて知った。」"Huh, this is the first time I know of that."
「よく見ると、顔がそっくりでしょう?」"They look so alike if you look them carefully."
「たしかにそう思っていたけれども、姉妹だとは分からなかったなあ。」"Yeah, I've noticed that, but I did not know that they are sisters."
「Alice と Bob ってどういう間柄か、分かった?」"Do you know the relationship between Alice and Bob?"
「うん、分かった。ありがとう。」"Now I know. Thanks."
次の日。next day.
「Alice は Bob のおばさんだって、昨日知ったよ。」"Yesterday I knew that Alice is Bob's aunt."
「だいたいなら知ってるよ。このあたりは、いつも時速90キロくらいで走るんだ。」
「だいたいなら分かるよ。電柱の間隔が 100 m おきだから、この時計を参考にすると、時速90キロくらいだね。」
In this case,
In this case,
In this case,
By the way, you can say "誰にも分からない" but not "誰にも知らない." But, you can say "誰にも知られていない."
These two are almost the same.
In this case,
I feel slight accusation from the second one because it sounds like "This is the very first time you tell me that." or "Why didn't you told me earlier?" Also,「今分かったよ」and「知ったよ。」are not natural responses.
「知る」 is used when you actively learn or learn about something, whereas 「わかる」 is more for things that have been brought to your awareness regardless of involvement.
Consequently, 「わからない」 is used when you are not aware of/don't know something, whereas 「知らない」 is used when you are willfully ignorant of something. Therefore 「知らない」/「知りません」 should be avoided since it denotes that you are/were not willing to find out about the fact in question.
Other people have talked about the difference between 知る and 分かる so I won't touch that one (especially since people far more knowledgeable than myself have already answered), but I did want to make one point about the different forms, since I haven't seen that addressed yet.
I was watching a TV show in Japanese once when a this girl and guy each had crushes on each other so they flirted alot, but the guy always did things to make the girl angry. One time she got annoyed but she tried to hide it, but the other guy could tell. He asked her "haha what are you getting angry about?" and she responded, simply, 分かる？
It was then that the light bulb went off in my head. 分かる means "can tell". It also means "understand", but it depends on whether it's in a sentence or a question. I think the entire list is something like this:
分かった - Got it.
分かったか。 - Got it?
分かります。 - I can tell.
分かりますか。 - Do you understand? / Can you tell?
分かっている。 - I got it, I got it.
Obviously you aren't going to translate these phrases like this every time, but the meaning holds I believe. The important point about the っている form is that it seems to emphasize that this is not new information, which is why I repeated the phrase "I got it" twice.
As for the dictionary / ます form, I've never found a situation where "can tell" does not translate exactly from English into Japanese 分かります.
I can't tell what the weather will be like tomorrow.
Nobody can tell what the future holds.
(Looking far away / squinting) Can you tell if that lady is hot?
etc. The same distinction seems to apply to 知る and 知っている as well.
Note that this analysis is not backed up by any kind of reference, it's just a realization I came to on my own, so there may be some minor flaws in it.
Where did he go?
Oh, since we're talking about Japanese,
Don't f*ck with me
Also,
To sum up: if you don't get the logic, choose what a good speaker would say! (Yes, it sounds stupid and obvious, but that's how it works when languages are very different from yours)
When I was in college one of my professors taught us a basic principle for telling when to use each:
分からない: I don't know (generic, but with a sense that it's pertinent to the speaker)
知らない: I don't know, and I have no reason to (not relevant to the speaker)
You can't 'understand' (わかる) a person, place or thing. You can't 'know' (知る) a concept.
That's a bit of a generalization, but will get you through most of it. Learning by context is very important, though, so you should be getting a lot of input to help resolve questions like this.
行く/来る = go/come oversimplification). See @DaveMG's answer below for a good example...
To understand the difference, you need to know where 分かる comes from. Pun intended. わかる is the intransitive form of 分ける, meaning "to separate". If I 分ける something, I divide it out, but if I わかる something, the dividing would be done in me. Another way of translating it would be "parsing out an idea from all the rest". In the case of the scenario about knowing what you would do tomorrow, you would say 分からない, meaning "I haven't parsed/figured that out [yet]."
わかっている would thus mean "parsing". You might use this if someone is trying to drill something into your head when you already heard them the first time. わかっているよ！！ ("I'm parsing it out already!")
知る is literally "to know", but that specifically means "to possess [what we might call static] information" as opposed to making decisions. 知っている would be "knowing".
I could be wrong about all this, but it's pretty consistent with my experience.
知る is basically used for the new knowledge or idea or thoughts...something new. When you 知る something, it means that you didn't know it before. So, 知った implies that you just heard or seen something new for you, not necessarily means that you understood it.
Whereas 分かる is not used only for the new things but also something you've already heard or seen. When you 分かる something, whether it's new for you or not, you understand it or at least try to do. When you comfort your friend who got heart-broken, for example, you would say "その気持ち分かるよ (I know/understand how it feels like)" even you didn't have the same experience. 分かった expresses that you understand/understood it.
知っている and 分かっている are exchangeable in many contexts, however, 知っている is more about the knowledge.
Answering to the question like "明日は何をしますか？" or "先生はどこにいますか？", 分かりません/分からない is preferred because it impresses to the listener that the speaker made an effort to asnwer. You could use 知りません/知らない but it sounds a bit cold.
It depends on the context but 知る and 分かる are used like below:
知らなかった = I didn't know (hadn't heard/seen it before).
分からなかった = I didn't know/understand it (although I tried).
知っていたけど分かっていなかった = I knew it (and I thought I understood) but didn't understand.
I would like to approach this question from a purely grammatical aspect.
知る is a transitive verb.
分かる is historically the intransitive verb of 分ける. Just like most intransitive verbs, it can function like an potential verb or passive verb.
The main reason you use a intransitive or potential verb is to express:
the result of some activity you want to accomplish
You want to achieve some kind of result, so you check what happens now and then
お茶を入れる→お茶が入った
風呂を沸かす→風呂が沸いた
準備をする→準備ができた
事情を聞く→事情がわかった
使い方を調べる→使い方がわかった
When you have been looking for the answer, わかる is chosen because it's just the result you want. 偶然知った⇔やっとわかった
the difficulty of some activity or low probability of some event
Just like 1, if you know something is difficult because someone wants to make it happen but fails. It must be something important or desirable, otherwise people won't try to do it.
日本語を話す→日本語が話せる
理解する→理解できる
その言葉の意味を知る→その言葉の意味が分かる
Using intransitive verbs sounds more awesome. It implies not everyone can.
The main reason you use a intransitive verb or passive verb is to express:
the event without mentioning the actor or there is no actor at all.
家に死体を見つけた(私は implied)→家に死体が見つかった(誰かに implied)
原因を明らかにした(私は implied)→原因が明らかになった(誰かに implied)
分かった in this case is basically the same as 判明した.
I think it more or less explains the 内/外 difference.
Sometimes, わかった is used immediately after you happen to know/realize something, e.g. それを見て何かわかった. But in Classical Japanese, 知りぬ(知ってしまった) is used. (われ朝ごと夕ごとに見る竹の中におはするにて知りぬ) Many verbs about perception tend to be intransitive. e.g. 気づく, 見える, 聞こえる, etc, both some else do not: 感じる, etc. I haven't found a good explanation.
In modern Japanese, it seems that there is not a exact transitive counterpart of 分かる. When わかる means “to understand”, 理解する can used. But 理解する is a little literary and not used for trivial things. So you may often see ～を分かってほしい. 了解した can be used instead of わかった as a response.
On the other hand 知る is irregular, too. You say 知っている but 知らない. 知れる is almost only used in fixed expressions. わかる is often used instead of 知れる when you want to.
