Convince V.S. Persuade

Have you guys even thought about the difference between "convince" and "persuade"? You know, like Asian students, we usually learn English from memorizing English words. But it was like notching each words into our brain, which surely is very uncomfortable way to learn and importantly isn't a precise way to learn when it comes to use English in writing and speaking.

In Chinese, "convince" and "persuade" have the same meaning, which all means "說服". When you throw these two words to the Google translate, you pretty much get the same result, "說服". As the saying goes, however, the devil lies in details. In fact, "convince" is to make someone to believe, agree, realize the truth of something. Basically, the idea or thought is the objective you would like to convince to someone. On the other hand, "persuade" is to cause someone to adopt a certain position, belief, course of action. Specifically, you want to persuade someone to act like what he/she believes.

Here is the tip to remember when it comes to use it. Just think idea when using convince, and think action when using persuade. When you convince someone, you want to make one to believe certain idea but not necessarily to act with the that idea. When you persuade someone to act, you literally want someone to act with what you convince about.

Hope those are useful info to you.

In Chinese:
講簡單一點,就是Convince是說服別人去相信某個想法而已,
但Persuade,是說服別人去做某事.
在"阿豆啊"眼裡是有差別地,哈哈.
舉例來說:
I convince Kenneth to buy iPhone 4G. (看你要不要買!!)
I persuade Kenneth to buy iPhone 4G. (叫你去買!!)
現在知道不同了吧...