The phrase "a partial understanding of" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing someone's incomplete or limited grasp of a subject or concept.
Example: "After the lecture, I realized I had only a partial understanding of the topic and needed to do further research."
Alternatives: "a limited grasp of" or "an incomplete comprehension of".
At the time, no one seemed to have more than a partial understanding of why they were fighting.
"Even when researchers are confused, and only have a partial understanding of a puzzle, it is important that their explanations have some element of logic and consistency".
Given the global reduction in biodiversity, conservation actions must occur even with only a partial understanding of the distribution and abundance of species in various locales.
Although we are still unable to predict when a volcano will erupt, we have managed to acquire at least a partial understanding of the forces that can cause the earth's plates to move, producing the not unrelated seismic phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes.
There is only a partial understanding of how the properties of the materials used in the design of an antibacterial agent (core structures, functional groups) determine its biological activities: from inhibitory potency at the bacterial target to bacterial cell envelope permeation to human pharmacokinetics, all of which are complex and multifactorial.
This error demonstrates a partial understanding of the power rule.
In traditional societies such as ancient Egypt, the Roman empire or medieval China, humans had a very partial understanding of biochemistry, genetics, zoology and epidemiology.
There are also many contemporary resonances in a story that is in part about the attempted reconstruction of a country after conflict, "that was well intentioned and partly successful, but was also unpredictable and undertaken with a very partial understanding of the local people.
And we adopt that belief because we understand the tools - we grasp what an enterprise social network is or we know Twitter and have a very partial understanding of their impact on our own capacity to communicate.
However, the development of drought-tolerant varieties still represents a challenging task, being hampered by the occurrence of genotype × environment interactions, the difficulty of effective drought tolerance screening and a still partial understanding of the molecular mechanisms of plant drought tolerance (Richards 1996; Kumar et al. 2008).
The unavoidable truth is that, by and large, the increasingly privileged and entitled products of an elite private education have – almost inevitably – only a limited and partial understanding of, and empathy with, the realities of everyday life as lived by most people.
