Throughout my education in Japanese language, I am still having difficulty with some Japanese words that carry the same meaning, but used in different contexts. Some words that always gives me trouble in terms of when to use them is words like “to understand, to know” – wakarimasu, and shirimasu. I believe Michiko told me that shirimasu, is used more in terms with like dealing with people such as “did you know so and so is getting married?”, “did you know so and so is having a baby”. Wakarimasu, I guess is used in more technical terms such as “do you know how to get from point A to point B?”, “do you know how to change a tire?”. And of course there is also words such as dekimasu and tsukurimasu. <sigh> Japanese is really difficult in that aspect.