I realized, I recognized.

written on
by Lukas
in reflections

tagged studying

※ I posed this question to Americans on 6th of February 2017.

Let’s consider some example statements in English:

  1. I realized, that the animal underneath the leaf was a gekko.

  2. And once he showed me the picture, I realized that I was thinking of the wrong person.

  3. I range the bell, but recognized that no sound was triggered.

  4. In the end, I realized it by using the blueprint from the top of the shelf.

This discussion is about using "to recognize something" and "to realize something". Where is the difference? You will find many online threads about this issue [01] [02].

I think the confusion comes from German. In German, "etwas realisieren" means "to implement something" as well as "to identify/distinguish something". In contrast, "etwas wahrnehmen" (I think this is the most similar to "to recognize") only means the latter. There is certainly some kind of anglicism involved. Not all these definitions come from the German language originally.

Anyhow, I asked Americans how to use these verbs and their answer is: They can be used interchangably except for "to build". It is uncommon and a bit archaic, but possible to substitute "to build" with "to realize". In terms of the other cases, a certain preference can be identified. "to realize" is something personal about your own knowledge, opinion or view on a subject. "to recognize" is something external. An external state like the color of an object changes. If someone perceives this change, he/she "recognizes" it. The focus is on his/her change of behavior or reaction and independent on your own perception. Something external has to change.

So, what about the example statements? I think the following changes have to be applied:

  1. I recognized, that the animal underneath the leaf was a gekko.

  2. And once he showed me the picture, I realized that I was thinking of the wrong person.

  3. I range the bell, but realized that no sound was triggered.

  4. In the end, I realized it by using the blueprint from the top of the shelf.

It was nice to have a chat about this issue 😋