I'm trying to distinguish the differences between English words that express emotional or psychological sensitivity, in particular "pity", "compassion", "sympathy", "empathy", "pathetic", and "pitiful". I'd appreciate some help associating those English words with their proper German equivalents (wie Mitleid, Mitgefühl, usw.).
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@Em1: In the original version of my question I actually started to mention sympathisch and pathetisch as examples of misleading words but decided it would make the question too long. :-)– KevinCommented Mar 13, 2012 at 14:46
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Yes, I can look things up in a dictionary, but you get several of the same words repeated for each word you look up. And I didn't know which ones most closely matched the English with the German words. That was what I was hoping to find here. Sometimes I think the German is a bit more expressive.– KevinCommented Mar 13, 2012 at 14:49
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@userunknown: Das schon, mehr krieg ich auch hier wahrscheinlich nicht, aber wer weiß?– KevinCommented Mar 13, 2012 at 14:58
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1@Kevin I think you can't find a translation like that. There are a lot of words which have obviously similar German words, e.g. exact - exakt, but you do not always translate it like this. If you are you looking for the most likely and closest translation, that's the wrong way. It's better to understand what the German words means and the difference. E.g. Mitgefühl vs Mitleid.You can use them interchangeably like pity and compassion.Btw. compassion is more like Mitgefühl while pity is more like pity, if you want to find a perfect match– Em1Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 15:22
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omg... I should read, what I write :D My last sentence should be: Compassion is more like Mitgefühl while pity is more like Mitleid. However...– Em1Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 21:02
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1 Answer
In principle these words are very similar. The words are either synonyms or they define each other. That leads to the fact that the translation is intersecting. Which word you actually choose depends on the context.
I take the explanation from OALD.
pity: a feeling of sympathy and sadness caused by the suffering and troubles of others
Mitleidcompassion: a strong feeling of sympathy for people who are suffering and a desire to help them
Mitgefühl, Mitleidsympathy: the feeling of being sorry for somebody; showing that you understand and care about somebody's problems
Beileid, Anteilnahme, Verständnis, auch Mitleid und Mitgefühl möglichsympathy: friendship and understanding between people who have similar opinions or interests
Sympathie, Zuneigungempathy: the ability to understand another person's feelings, experience, etc
Empathie, Einfühlungsvermögenpathetic: making you feel pity or sadness
mitleiderregendpitiful: deserving pity or causing you to feel pity
mitleidsvoll, bemitleidenswert
Note:
Some of this words, e.g. pity, is often translated as bedauerlich or schade like in That is a pity.
to feel sorry also means Mitleid empfinden
