there are many difference between the two words....I have to say that the common meaning of them is doing exercise...are you asking about the difference in usages when they have the same meaning? 1 锻炼 can be a verb. eg. 我在锻炼。 to be exactly, 运动 means sports...so if you are doing exercise...you should say 我在做运动。still they have some tiny difference...that's the difference between exercise and sports... 2 also 锻炼 is a transitive verb...eg.我要经常锻炼身体。 but 运动 is not... 3 there is a word "早锻炼", which means doing exercises in the morning...eg..老人们都喜欢早锻炼。 3 运动 can be repeated twice in oral chinese...eg. 我一会儿去运动运动。I am going to do some exercise...but if 锻炼 is repeated twice, it usually has a different meaning....eg. 年轻人，多锻炼锻炼，对你有好处! Young men, experience more and work harder, it will be benificial~

duanlian and yundong are different when used as verbs, technically duanlian can be both transitive and intransitive verb, whereas yundong is intransitive only. you can say 锻炼身体 but not 运动身体

Hi ," 锻炼 (duan4lian4) " includes many many diffrent items, such as 锻炼our body&health, if you want learning Chinese well you should often 锻炼(means often practice). Etc. And "运动(yun4dong4)" means moving, it emphasizes the action/movement?

thank you :-)

Normally they mean the same thing in daily speech. but if you dig a little bit deeper, you will find that they are different things in nature. 锻炼 put more emphasis on "desired result", but 运动 is just what sport to choose to achieve that result. bottom line, you want to achieve the result of "锻炼" by "运动". that is all I can think of off the top of my head.