Literate: [lit-er-it], adjective, Able to read and write.
Educated: [ej-oo-key-ted], adjective, Having undergone education.
Intelligent: [in-tel-i-juhnt], adjective, Having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend.
Many people often think all of these are the same thing and that just because you graduate from school you obviously know how to read and write. Twenty-one percent of adults can't read above a 5th grade level and 19 percent of high school graduates can not read. The difference between the three words and the elaboration on the importance of each as well.
Literate vs Educated
To be literate means to be able to read and write. Any six-year old typically knows how to write, but they are generally not educated on even simple things. They haven't started or maybe just started schooling recently and their knowledge of educational topics is very limited. To be specific, when I was five, I started kindergarten and learned how to write basic sentences like "I like to eat." However, I was not educated on the importance of nutrition at that age. Of course I knew candy all the time wasn't healthy, but I didn't know much about protein, carbs, fats and so on. It's so very important to be literate; if you aren't able to write I strongly encourage you to seek tutoring. Writing and being able to read is the most important thing in life, without it you can't do even the simplest things from reading the news to taking tests and it can even affect things such as your driving or even grocery shopping! As far as education, I believe that you should spend your life continuing to educate yourself - even on the simple things in lie. All knowledge is power.
Educated vs Intelligent
Education is providing you with access to information for you to learn. Intelligence is the way we process that information, create connections, inferences and extensions and take that learning to new places that education didn't lead us. To paraphrase a quote I heard somewhere: Education is learning that a tomato is technically a fruit, intelligence is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. Intelligence is a poorly defined concept. People who write tests claim is is measuring potential, but in fact, intelligence tests measure knowledge, not aptitude. Education is a much more easily ascertainable thing. You can ask people what kinds of degrees they have and from where. But more importantly, you can see what they bring to the conversation by the references they make and the knowledge they use. I think that when people talk about intelligence, what they really mean is education, because education is easily discernible and intelligence doesn't really mean much of anything.
