There is no German word for "self-aware" | Hacker News Reader

There is no German word for "self-aware"

old.reddit.com

4 pointsamai13 comments

Interestingly Wikipedia links the article of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness

with

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objektive_Selbstaufmerksamkeit

I have never heard anyone using the ladder word.

I ran into similar issue with compassion. In English it is "a social feeling that motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental, or emotional pains of others and themselves"

In German and Slovak (my first language) and presumably others, it is usually translated into kind of remorseful feeling NOT directly related to the motivation to go out of one's way. And it just can't be explained and it drives me crazy recently.

What's your problem with "Mitgefühl"?

That is closer to “empathy” than compassion. Compassion has no reason other recognizing the other person as “human”. “Mitgefühl” seems closer to understanding how the other person feels and therefore acting on it.. empathy.

Perhaps you could think of similar to the concept of “charity”. Doing beneficial things to others.. just because.

I dare to disagree. Empathy would be Empathie or Einfühlungsvermögen. Mitgefühl is not empathy and a common translation for compassion.

Found articles like one below, seems you're right!

https://www.psychologie-heute.de/leben/artikel-detailansicht...

It's a context thing. When I say selbstbewusst it can very well have the meaning of self-aware and also would be perceived as that.

What's wrong with "selbstwahrnehmend"? It's literally (pun slightly intended) a literal translation of "self-aware" and doesn't have the ambiguity that "selbstbewusst" comes with.

We have “selbstreflektiert” which seems to be close enough.

Does English have one word for self aware?

Yes: self-aware.

There's one word for that: not-sure-I-agree.

Now you’re thinking with hyphens!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com