How would you translate “to judge someone” to German?

Question

In English, "to judge someone" often implies a negative opinion, as in "Don't judge me!".

Is there a German equivalent for this? How would you translate the example? My dictionary gives "jmdn. richten". Is this any good in this context?

Answer 1

I'd say "richten" is more a judicial term (btw not to confuse with "hinrichten" which means "to execute so."). This is what a judge does. I assume you mean "to judge so." in the sense of having prejudices against someone as in

You should not judge people by their appearance.

(from Merriam-Webster)

This would simply be "beurteilen nach":

Man sollte andere nicht nach ihrem Äußeren beurteilen.

I don't think there is a direct translation for "don't judge me" without adding an object as in the example above:

Beurteile mich nicht nach meinem Auto.

would be

Don't judge me by my car.

In some contexts you could probably use "verurteile mich nicht" but "verurteilen" means more like "to heavily criticize" and is usually for quite serious acts and causes others to keep their distance (apart from also being a synonym for "richten"). I think for most cases "beurteilen" should be fine.

Answer 2

The English use of "Don't judge me!" covers many different contexts.

"Richten" does rarely have the same flavour. It would be used to translate related bible phrases on the theme of "don't judge others".

In the context of a relationship a closely-related phrase that is actually used often would be:

"Hör auf mir Vorwürfe zu machen."

(Literally: Stop making accusations against me.)

In the context "Walk a mile in my shoes before judging me.", people would rather say:

"Wenn du jemals in meiner Situation gewesen wärst, würdest du anders reden."

(If you would ever have been in my situation, you would talk differently.)

Answer 3

I would suggest a translation that hasn't been mentioned yet: "über jemanden urteilen". This is also, in my opinion, the most natural translation for "don't judge me", which then becomes "urteile nicht über mich". A Google search shows that this phrase appears to be quite widely used:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22urteile+nicht+%C3%BCber+mich%22

In addition, "über jemanden urteilen" carries at least some of the Christian undertones that "to judge someone" has... enough at least that this Christian blog uses it in the title of one of its articles:

http://de.evangelist-online.net/kirche-gemeinde/urteile-nicht-uber-mich

In the body of the text, though, the article then goes on to use the verb "richten", which is certainly the usual translation of "judge" in the context of "judge not, that ye not be judged".

Answer 4

jemanden bewerten

is used like "to judge someone" in English

jemanden beurteilen

rather refers to grades and performance

jemanden verurteilen

to condemn or convict someone

jemanden richten

means to judge someone (in court) and has the connotation of "to enforce judgement"