Steam Achievements vs Steam Trading Cards

[TEAM O & A]

I know this is a stpuid question and I feel like a total noob for asking, what's the difference between Achievements and Trading Cards? Do you get Trading Cards by unlocking acheivements? Or are Achievements Trading Cards? I'm so confused, I wanna up my Steam level I'm tired of being a level 3

[tmwfte]

Two different things.

Achievements are tied to doing various different things in the various games as set out by the developers. They are specific to your account and really don't do anything other than enlarge e-peen.

Trading cards are drops tied to how much time you've spent in a game as set out by the developers. If a dev has enable cards on their game, you usually can gain about half of the total number of cards needed to complete a badge. You can then trade for the cards that you need to complete a badge, sell them on the market, or leave them in your inventory to look at and do nothing with.