How is "Veneration" similar or  different from "Adoration"? Most Catholics teach about honoring the saints, and mostly about "venerating" the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Though in my country (I'm from the Philippines), the line between honoring saints / Mary and the way we should honor the Lord is very thin, to most extreme cases, like some documentary I watched in TV, wherein one bedridden young woman prays to Mary  to heal her from her sickness (got no link sorry).

What are the similarities both acts share? How must they differ (aside from the recipient of the act (God for Adoration, Saint / Mary for veneration))?

OFF-TOPIC: My original question was: Why do Catholics "venerate" Mary and why do they give somewhat "more emphasis" on "venerating her" over directly praying to Jesus?

My original question might not suit here, though if you were compelled to answer me, thanks a bunch!
So, there are many different forms of prayer, the three involved here are intercessory prayer and prayers of blessing and prayers of praise (which is more of paying honor to the saints and God).  

Then there are three forms of paying homage to God and His Saints in heaven. 

Veneration is the honor given to the saintсѕ аdoration is the honor given to God alone.

In Greek there's latria (worship/adoration due to God alone), dulia (veneration given to the saints) and hyperdulia (veneration given particularly to Our Lady).

The difference is, you really can't say that Our Lady did such and such for you, but traditionally Catholics understood what you were saying when you said such a thing.  We understood her to be the Mediatrix of All Graces without a dogma.  Bl. John Paul II took his motto, 'totus tuus Sum Maria', which is to say,  "I'm all yours Mary".  

The idea is that you can't really praise her enough, and all praise of her makes Our Lord happy, just like anything you say nice about my mom would make me happy!  

You go overboard when you start calling her a Goddess, start having baptizing in her name, start really believing that it is her, not God who is working miracles.  But cults like that die out and are suppressed by the Church eventually. 

So, in short, you can't say enough good things about Mary, you can't praise her enough and everything done for her is done for Jesus. 

It's not essential to salvation, but 'to Jesus through Mary' is not a bad path for any Catholic.