Is there a difference between 理解する、and 分かる? They all seem to mean "understand" but I cannot figure their difference:
Here is some context:
彼らは誰よりも深くお互いを理解した
They understood each other better than anyone else.
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Your question seems a bit too vague, if you look up the three words in a dictionary you'll see that they are clearly different, especially 把握. – Ben Mar 8 at 1:12
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OK Ben I reformulated the question so its domain is more narrow – Makoto Mar 8 at 6:34
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OK I'll try to answer, but there is a duplicate here: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/33826/… – Ben Mar 8 at 6:45
理解する is very close to わかる in one of its meanings, to understand something.
人の気持ちを理解する - OK
人の気持ちがわかる - OK
理解する is transitive and takes を whereas わかる takes が. 理解する is a kango (漢語) word consisting of a kanji pair plus suru, so it tends to be used in more formal contexts.
The use of わかる and わからない to mean "know/don't know" is not interchangeable with 理解する:
brother: 僕のカギどこ？
sister: わからない - OK
brother: 僕のカギどこ？
sister: 理解しない・理解できない - wrong or at least strange-sounding
