link/symbolic link~ What is the differance?

/_> From what I've interpreted from a combination of the info/man pages on ln, it
/_> seems that without the -s it is just another command for copy.
/_>
/_> Is this correct?
/_
/_With a hard link, you have pointers to the same data saved at some
/_particular location on the disk. So it's technically not a copy.
/_~M
/_
I must admit, I too, never fully understood the differance between
soft & hard links.

-Mike