I disagree with Webster on this issue. Learning is not the act of obtaining knowledge. Learning is interpreting knowledge and transforming it into wisdom. You may seek all the knowledge you wish during the course of your life, but you are only truly learning if you seek knowledge in order to be humbled by it.

Please forgive me if I come across as preachy. Behind the universe is numbers, but be aware of something behind the numbers.

Whenever you hear of someone who can do "amazing" things like do calculus in their head, it isn't because of some genetic miracle--it's because, somehow, at some point (maybe from very early on in their life), they acquired a perspective on the concept of number and on spatial understanding that allows them to perform what seems to be "miraculous" to those without this same perspective.

GAKU mana (learning)

ASCII Art Representation:

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Character Etymology:

Originally written as a highly stylized pictograph of hands combined with two sets of crossed sticks meaning, "to intertwine". Because the sticks were a matched pair, to create the match it had to be emulated by working hands, hence to emulate manually.

Later a roof was added and even later still a child was added under that roof, presumably with the idea that children naturally emulate— they learn. Through heavy stylization, the present character was the result.

A listing of all on-yomi and kun-yomi readings:

on-yomi: GAKU
kun-yomi: mana(bu) mana(bi)

Nanori Readings:

Nanori: taka nori

English Definitions:

1. GAKU: learning, study, science, scholarship, erudition..
2. mana(bu): learn, study.
3. mana(bi): learning, study, knowledge, literary ability.

Unicode Encoded Version:

学

Unicode Encoded Compound Examples:

学生 (gakusei): student.
大学 (daigaku): university.
学問 (gakumon): learning, studies, scholarship, knowledge, education, culture, science.

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If you don't make the same mistake twice, you're doing good.

Learn"ing, n. [AS. leornung.]

1.

The acquisition of knowledge or skill; as, the learning of languages; the learning of telegraphy.

2.

The knowledge or skill received by instruction or study; acquired knowledge or ideas in any branch of science or literature; erudition; literature; science; as, he is a man of great learning.

Book learning. See under Book.

Syn. -- Literature; erudition; lore; scholarship; science; letters. See Literature.

© Webster 1913.