stimulate some one means excite or arrouse him encourage : is to give support , confidence or hope to someone But generally the simentic defference between words don't appear clearly in english this can be in arabic language because each wor in arabic has its own use and cant be confused with an other word if we really practice it well . good luck!

Both can mean the same thing. Example: You can stimulate or encourage class discussions by choosing topics that students are interested in.

to STIMULATE someone means to awaken his senses. to ENCOURAGE someone means to motivate him.

Stimulation definitely implies this idea of action, for example if you talk about stimulation of a market, it means making it react, you couldn't talk about encouragement of the market. Same with mental stimulation. There's this idea that there's an existing action that we stimulate so that it will react in a way it didn't. So I think sana87 has it right.

In my point of view When person is losing hope and feeling like he couldnot do a specific thing, act of giving him courage with actions or words so that he will feel strong is Encouragement. Stimulation is a sudden arousal which speeds up an existing action. if i am wrong please point out!