could you tell me the difference between ignore and neglect?

To neglect implies a sense of responsibility that is not being met toward something or someone which 'ignore' does not.

If you say, 'She neglected her child,' it means that she did not take care of him/her as she was expected to do.

If you say, 'She ignored her child,' it could just mean that she was trying to read a book and the child was being loud and/or intrusive and she ignored his/her behavior for the moment.

Ignore would turn into neglect when/if she continued to do so past the point that it was incumbent upon her to stop reading and take care of the child to meet his or her needs.

One difference would be, ignore is used for one instance: the child spoke and the mother ignored her.
Neglect is usually over a period of time: the child had a neglected appearance, being ill-clad, dirty and rather thin.

I beg to differ-neglect can be a one-time thing, as in, 'the driver neglected to fasten his seatbelt and was thrown from the car in the accident'.

So again, I don't think the time frame is necessarily as important as the aspect of the lack of responsibility taken when one neglects something or someone - even one single time. This is an aspect in which 'neglect' is different then to simply 'ignore'.

I have been ignoring you but I love you, still and will always.

I deny/neglect the fact that I am a woman. But I still and will always love me.

I am a man. Do not confuse me.

That depends on whether you want to use it as a verb or a noun. You will see I started my sentence "One difference..."

And many will see that you're not much of an understanding individual.

Everyone is different, think differently, everyone's mind works differently.

I know of this mother in the past who refused to see her child, have anything to do with her child because of the grief, psychological problems the mother was enduring. I haven't heard from the mother in a long while now so I'm unsure of what's going on right now. But I remember the mother informing me she wants to be able to obtain full custody of her child so she can take her child home for good. That the small visits and getting no where in life due to her problems was doing nothing. So it is very likely the individuals, who took the mother's child away because of false allegations made up in their head and their desired vengeance pertaining to the mother, spoke of the mother as being neglectful. Well that's just who they are. The mother finally understood that she needed to just make not only her mother and mother's husband understand, but the entire world understand who she was. Things usually never go as planned because there are usually negative individuals doing their best to destroy an individual out of vengeance, like feelings.

I read this; it's very touching, and quite well illustrates one usage of the word "neglect".
Mental illness is very upsetting for all involved.

I'm starting to think you have a crush on me McTag.

I guess I misinterpreted your meaning because of your use of the word 'would' instead of 'could' - as in 'One difference would be' (as if this is always a difference) instead of 'One difference 'COULD' be'- and also because of the use of the word 'usually' when you stated that 'neglect is usually over a period of time'. I think very often people neglect to do something once or twice with unfortunate consequences - to the point that there is a common phrase 'chronic neglect' which specifies of which sort of neglect one is speaking.
But in my mind, the defining difference between ignoring someone or something and neglecting them or it has to do with dispensing with responsibility in that instance.
I wanted to make this clear to the poster who seems to have been asking sincerely.

I think we could agree to disagree about this. I like my point better, and I think the phrase quoted here amounts almost to tautology. In other words, neglect does not have to be qualified as "chronic neglect" to be understood to have happened over time. imho.

I'd almost look at neglect as being ignored where it is harmful. In other words you can ignore where there is no problem -- in fact sometimes ignoring is the better option and helpful. Buy neglect would be harmful in some way.

For example a young child throwing a fit -- ignoring the fit would be better than reacting often times. It teaches a child that throwing a fit doesn't get them anything.

Whereas you ignore feeding a child -- that would be neglect.