to be mistaken and to misunderstand?

Question

1) Life is not that easy, he is mistaken.
2) Life is not that easy, he misunderstand.

which one make senses? when do we use "be mistaken" and when misunderstand? what is the different? please give some example sentences of how to use these words. Thanks alot

Answer 1

As others have pointed out, "he misunderstand" is grammatically incorrect.

Either "he misunderstands" or "he misunderstood."

As far as which to say, in the sentences you give, they're pretty much synonymous; they say the same thing, his belief is false.

Why don't you look up 'mistake' and 'mistaken' and 'misunderstand' and 'understand' in a good dictionary.

A really good dictionary will have synonymies in it -- these are passages that distinguish among synomyms and near-synomyms.

Now that I've stared at them a while, I guess 1 is better.

If I say something, and you get a wrong idea of what I said, you misunderstood me or misunderstood my meaning.

Having a false belief (as in the case you give) is more a mistake, than misunderstanding.

Though you could say "he doesn't understand" in this case.

It's a subtle point, but it's not as though someone said "Life isn't easy" and he misunderstood that statement.

The more important point, though, is that a lot of sentences are basically saying the same thing, and often there's no real difference.

There are usually many ways to say a given thing.

Answer 2

#1 makes sense.

"He is mistaken" means he is wrong in thinking the way he does.

You are mistaken if you think finding a job will be easy.

"He misunderstands" (note the third-person "s") means he is wrong about what someone else said or wrote or meant.

I misunderstood the question, because my German is so bad.

Answer 3

You'll need to parse your own sentences ... and you'll need to read the WHOLE dictionary 'definition' of each of these words to be able to 'understand' what they mean, and how they can both be 'misunderstood' and 'mistaken' if you don't use them properly. PLEASE use a 'good hard-copy dictionary' or go online to the Oxford English Dictionary and have a 'good read.'

Answer 4

1.
2. should read .... he misunderstands.