Luhmann uses in his writings the two words 'Erfahrung' and 'Erleben', which both translate as 'experience' in English. There is a semantic overlap between the two German words, but 'Erleben' is closer to the English 'to experience something', or 'to go through some experience', while 'Erfahrung' is closer to the notion of experience in the sense of 'to be experienced in something', that is, to learn something or to obtain knowledge about something by having gone through the experience.

DEFINE: Distinguishes Erleben (going through an experience) from Erfahrung (accumulated knowledge from experience) — a useful conceptual distinction often lost in English translation.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 86