Science Is Not Made of Terms. It Is Made of Relationships.
Why knowing scientific vocabulary does not necessarily mean understanding science
Vocabulary names the pieces. Understanding connects them.
— Tymur Levitin
A student learns ten words:
atom
molecule
reaction
enzyme
substrate
protein
concentration
solution
acid
base
Now ask a simple question:
Does the student understand chemistry?
Obviously, we cannot know.
They may be able to define every word.
They may translate every term perfectly.
They may even use each one in a grammatically correct sentence.
And still understand very little about what actually happens when substances interact.
Because science is not a collection of names.
Science begins when the names become connected.
Knowing the Pieces Is Not Knowing the System
Imagine giving someone the following words:
temperature
particles
collision
energy
reaction rate
Every term can be memorized independently.
But chemistry appears only when the learner understands relationships between them:
Increasing temperature changes the movement of particles.
That affects the frequency and energy of collisions.
Those changes can affect reaction rate.
Now we have something fundamentally different from vocabulary.
We have a model.
The learner can begin asking:
What changes?
What causes the change?
Under what conditions?
What would happen if one variable were different?
That is where scientific thinking begins.
Research in chemistry education makes a similar distinction. Conceptual understanding is commonly associated not merely with knowing individual concepts, but with recognizing relationships among concepts and being able to apply them to problems.
Vocabulary Gives Us Nodes
Understanding Gives Us Connections
Perhaps we can imagine knowledge as a network.
Individual concepts are nodes.
The relationships between them are connections.
A learner may accumulate hundreds of nodes:
enzyme
substrate
active site
activation energy
inhibitor
reaction
But if those nodes remain isolated, the learner possesses terminology rather than a functioning conceptual system.
Understanding begins when they can say:
An enzyme binds to a substrate.
The binding occurs at an active site.
The enzyme changes the pathway of the reaction.
An inhibitor can interfere with that process.
Changing conditions may affect enzyme activity.
Each new relationship changes what the learner can do with the knowledge.
They can explain.
Predict.
Compare.
Infer.
Question.
Apply.
The words matter.
But the connections make them useful.
Science Lives Between the Words
This is why scientific language is so interesting.
Consider:
temperature
and
reaction rate
Two terms.
Now place something between them:
Temperature increases reaction rate.
We have created a relationship.
Add another layer:
Increasing temperature often increases reaction rate because particles collide more frequently and with greater energy.
Now we have begun constructing a causal explanation.
The intellectual content is no longer located primarily in the nouns.
Much of it is carried by:
increases
because
more frequently
with greater
Scientific texts repeatedly depend on precisely these kinds of causal, conditional and relational structures. Research on chemistry textbooks notes that scientific writing frequently uses complex syntax to connect information and express causal relationships between processes.
This matters enormously when science is studied through another language.
The student may know every technical noun in the sentence and still miss the scientific relationship.
The Most Important Word May Be “Because”
Suppose a learner understands:
enzyme
temperature
activity
But cannot comfortably process:
because
therefore
as a result
provided that
whereas
although
when
if
Now something strange happens.
They possess much of the scientific vocabulary.
Yet the language needed to organize scientific reasoning remains incomplete.
Consider the difference:
The enzyme activity decreased.
and:
The enzyme activity decreased because the temperature exceeded the optimal range.
The first sentence reports an observation.
The second begins to explain it.
Add:
If the temperature continues to rise, the enzyme may denature.
Now the learner is reasoning conditionally.
Scientific understanding increasingly becomes visible through relationships expressed by language.
That is why scientific English cannot be reduced to lists of scientific terms.
Chemistry Has More Than One Language
There is another complication.
Chemistry does not communicate only through ordinary sentences.
It moves between several representational systems.
Words.
Equations.
Formulas.
Graphs.
Tables.
Diagrams.
Molecular structures.
Symbols.
A learner may understand one representation but struggle to move into another.
They see:
2H₂ + O₂ → 2H₂O
Perhaps the equation is completely clear.
Now ask:
Explain in English what this equation represents and why the coefficients are necessary.
A different ability is required.
Or give the learner a paragraph describing a reaction and ask them to produce the equation.
Again, knowledge must travel between representations.
Research into chemistry learning describes this explicitly: learners may need to handle vocabulary, symbolic or syntactic representations, and disciplinary discourse simultaneously, sometimes translating from one form into another.
That cognitive movement is part of learning chemistry.
A Correct Definition Can Still Hide Weak Understanding
Consider the word:
catalyst
A learner memorizes:
A substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed.
Excellent.
Now ask:
Why does it increase the reaction rate?
Can it change the equilibrium position?
What happens to activation energy?
Does every catalyst work for every reaction?
Can you recognize a catalyst in an unfamiliar mechanism?
Suddenly the memorized definition is no longer enough.
This does not make definitions useless.
Precise terminology is extremely important in chemistry, and careless wording can produce genuine misconceptions.
But definitions are entry points.
They are not the entire structure of understanding.
Sometimes Everyday Language Makes Science Harder
Scientific language creates another fascinating problem.
Many scientific words already exist in everyday language.
But science uses them differently.
strong
weak
neutral
work
energy
solution
A student may already “know” the word.
Unfortunately, they may know the wrong meaning for the scientific context.
Research into chemistry vocabulary has documented precisely this difficulty: words with everyday and scientific meanings can remain confusing even after instruction, especially when learners rely on rote memorization rather than meaningful contextual use.
So knowing the translation of a word may sometimes create an illusion of understanding.
The word is familiar.
The concept is not.
This Becomes Even More Interesting in Another Language
Now imagine studying chemistry in English when English is not your strongest language.
Several layers can become entangled.
You may not know the English term.
You may know the term but misunderstand the scientific concept.
You may understand the concept but struggle with the English explanation.
You may understand both but fail to interpret the relationship expressed in a complicated sentence.
You may understand the sentence but struggle to convert it into an equation.
You may understand the equation but struggle to explain it verbally.
From the outside, all of these problems can look like:
The student doesn't understand chemistry.
But they are not the same problem.
In You Can Understand the Science and Still Get Lost in the English, I explored this distinction from the practical side:
https://timurlevitin.blogspot.com/2026/08/you-can-understand-science-and-still.html
The formula may be familiar while the English surrounding it creates the difficulty.
But the reverse is equally possible.
A student may understand every English word and still not understand the chemistry.
Language Can Hide Knowledge
Language Can Also Imitate Knowledge
These are two opposite educational errors.
The first:
A learner struggles to explain something, so we assume they do not understand it.
The second:
A learner uses the correct terminology, so we assume they do understand it.
Both judgments can be wrong.
Someone may understand deeply and speak imperfectly.
Someone else may reproduce sophisticated terminology without possessing a coherent conceptual model.
This is why the distinction developed in A Student's Language Level Is Not Their Knowledge Level matters:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/students-language-level-knowledge-f1xlf
Language performance and subject understanding interact.
But neither can automatically stand in for the other.
The Question “What Does This Mean?” Is Not Enough
When teaching science, we can ask:
What does enzyme mean?
Useful.
But then we need more.
What does an enzyme do?
What does it interact with?
What changes?
What remains unchanged?
Under which conditions?
What happens if those conditions change?
Why?
How do we know?
Now the learner is moving from lexical knowledge toward a scientific model.
The same transformation happens across disciplines.
Knowing inflation is not understanding economics.
Knowing variable is not understanding mathematics.
Knowing cell is not understanding biology.
Knowing force is not understanding physics.
Knowing loop is not understanding programming.
Terminology allows us to talk about a system.
It does not automatically give us the system.
This Is Why Language + Knowledge Must Remain Two Things
There is a temptation when combining subject and language learning to reduce the subject to vocabulary.
Learn twenty chemistry words in English.
Read a chemistry paragraph.
Complete a terminology exercise.
Call it Chemistry in English.
But if the objective includes chemistry, the chemistry must remain real.
Students need concepts.
Relationships.
Problems.
Mechanisms.
Reasoning.
Applications.
And if the objective includes English, the English must also remain real.
Students need to read.
Explain.
Compare.
Describe.
Ask.
Argue.
Interpret.
Language + Subject works only when neither side becomes decorative.
Biochemistry Makes This Impossible to Ignore
Take metabolism.
You could memorize:
metabolism
enzyme
substrate
ATP
glucose
oxidation
energy
But metabolism is not those seven terms.
It is a network of processes and relationships.
One molecule changes into another.
Energy is transferred.
Enzymes regulate reactions.
Pathways interact.
Conditions alter outcomes.
The learner needs a model of the system.
And then, if they are studying through English, they need language capable of carrying that model.
This is why biochemistry is such a useful example of the relationship between language and knowledge.
Neither can substitute for the other.
Perhaps Understanding Is the Ability to Move
There may be another way to think about understanding.
Perhaps understanding is not merely having information stored somewhere.
It is being able to move through the information.
From cause to consequence.
From observation to explanation.
From equation to sentence.
From diagram to concept.
From concept to prediction.
From one example to another.
From what we know to what we can infer.
The stronger those paths become, the more flexible the knowledge becomes.
A learner who has memorized isolated terms can recognize them.
A learner who understands relationships can use them.
That difference is enormous.
Scientific Language Should Make Relationships Visible
This gives language a much more interesting educational role.
We do not learn scientific English simply to replace one label with another.
We learn it so that scientific relationships can be understood and communicated.
X increases because Y changes.
A reacts with B under condition C.
The evidence suggests...
If this variable increases, then...
Unlike X, Y...
The result can be explained by...
These structures are not decoration around scientific knowledge.
They are among the tools through which knowledge becomes explicit.
The language helps reveal the model.
So What Should We Teach?
Sometimes:
a term.
Sometimes:
a concept.
Sometimes:
a relationship.
Sometimes:
the language needed to express the relationship.
Sometimes:
the scientific mechanism itself.
Sometimes:
the movement between a formula, a diagram and an explanation.
And sometimes all of these at once.
That is why good subject-and-language education begins with diagnosis rather than a predetermined worksheet.
What does the learner already know?
What can they recognize?
What can they explain?
Where does understanding stop?
Where does language stop?
Where does the connection between them stop?
Only then do we know what the next lesson should actually teach.
Learn Chemistry and Biochemistry in English
For learners who need this combination in practice, we have a dedicated direction:
Learn Chemistry and Biochemistry in English
https://timurlevitin.blogspot.com/p/learn-chemistry-and-biochemistry-in.html
Students may work with school or university chemistry, organic and physical chemistry, biochemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, scientific texts, terminology, exams and academic materials.
Depending on the learner's actual needs, the focus can be:
English for chemistry
Chemistry or biochemistry itself
or
English + Chemistry / Biochemistry together
The main teacher for this direction is Valeriy A. Bacherikov, an associate professor with experience teaching future doctors, pharmacists and dentists.
Because when the subject matters, subject expertise matters too.
Vocabulary Names the Pieces
Science needs terminology.
Precise words matter.
Definitions matter.
Scientific language matters.
But the purpose of those words is not to create an impressive vocabulary list.
Their purpose is to allow us to build, examine and communicate models of reality.
An atom matters because of what it is and what it can do.
An enzyme matters because of what it interacts with.
A reaction matters because something changes.
A variable matters because its relationship with another variable tells us something.
The deeper we go into science, the clearer this becomes.
Knowledge does not live in isolated labels.
It lives in structures.
Patterns.
Causes.
Conditions.
Transformations.
Connections.
Vocabulary names the pieces.
Understanding connects them.
And science begins when we can see the relationships between them.
Continue Learning
You Can Understand the Science and Still Get Lost in the English
https://timurlevitin.blogspot.com/2026/08/you-can-understand-science-and-still.html
A Student's Language Level Is Not Their Knowledge Level
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/students-language-level-knowledge-f1xlf
The Knowledge Was Never Lost. Only the Language Changed.
https://languagethinkinglab.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-knowledge-was-never-lost-only.html
You Already Know More German Than You Think
https://timurlevitin.blogspot.com/2026/08/you-already-know-more-german-than-you.html
Learn More
Learn Chemistry and Biochemistry in English
https://timurlevitin.blogspot.com/p/learn-chemistry-and-biochemistry-in.html
Explore personalized learning in languages, academic subjects and Language + Subject:
Levitin Language School
https://levitintymur.com/
Language Learnings (USA)
https://languagelearnings.com/
Contact: tymurlevitin@levitintymur.com
About the Author
Tymur Levitin
Founder & Director, Levitin Language School
Author and founder of the Language Thinking Lab, exploring language, knowledge, learning, communication and the structures through which human understanding becomes possible.
A word can identify a concept. Only a relationship can begin to explain a world.
— Tymur Levitin
© Tymur Levitin. All rights reserved.
Global Learning. Personal Approach.
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