I know it probably means ‘attention!’ or something like that. But I am looking for a literal translation. (Things often lose something in translation. So they’re never translated literally.)
And I guess I might as well tell you. I am thinking of the mob graffiti in Nazi Germany that said ‘Achtung Juden!’ Horrible reference I know. But as I said I was just curious what it literally means.
One literal meaning of the word is, indeed, “attention”. Depending on context, it can also mean “respect” or “esteem” (in the sense of having “Achtung” for someone). The etymological origin is a verb that means to be aware of something or to observe it. But it can also be shouted as a warning, in which case I think the best English translation would be “Attention!”, “Careful!” or “Danger!”.
It can also be shouted as a military order, analogous to “Ten-hut!” in English (which is, as I understand it, simply a corrupted pronunication of “Attention!”).
To this excellent answer I would add “Warning!” and “Watch out!” as other possibilities - these, and the last in particular, are what I would use if I were translating the phrase “Achtung Juden!” in that context. Disclaimer: I am not a German speaker, nor a translator, so I hope someone who is might confirm or disagree.
At least in the movies its means “machine-gun fire imminent”.
In Germany, I saw it in a couple of circumstances where in English they would have used “Danger” or “warning”. Like in an elevator or a hot stove.
Any Germans care to clarify.
As a native German speaker, I can confirm that all that has been said in this thread is correct.
For clarification: I know it can appear odd at first that the word can carry both negative connotations (as in the “warning” about Jewish shopkeepers that triggered the OP’s question) and positive ones (as in the case of “having Achtung” for someone, which can be translated as holding that person in high esteem). That’s why I made a brief reference to the etymology. As a single-word exclamation, all the suggestions like “Warning!”, “Danger!”, “Careful!”, “Watch out!” or “Attention!” are good translations.
At the start of the German version of “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”, does someone sing “Oh, Achtung!”?
To expound on Schnitte’s explanation
achtung German word used to command attention, from Ger. achtung, from acht (n.) “attention, care, heed, consideration,” achten (v.) “pay attention to, regard, esteem, respect,” from O.H.G. ahton “pay attention to,” a general Germanic word akin to O.E. eahtian “to estimate, esteem, consider, praise,” but with no living descendants in English.
Eta: O.H.G = old high german, O.E. = old english
Didn’t anybody tell you, didn’t anybody see, “Oh, lookout!” is not one of the suggested translations here. You should quit the police department and get yourself a steady job. (That is something I have been longing to say for ages) Oh yeah!
BTW: The German version starts with “Stillgestanden!” and all the other contributions to this thread (except yours and mine) are right.
Would “behold!” be the closest English counterpart?
“Behold!” is an injunction to observe something, but it doesn’t carry any implication that some consequent action may be required.
“Attend!” might do, since it can variously mean (a) look out for something that may occur; (b) watch or notice something that is occurring or has occurred; (c) be ready to respond, or actually respond, to something that requires or is entitled to a response. It’s slightly archaic, though. But it is, of course, from the verb attend that we get the notion of paying attention.
The subtextual assumption of the OP seems to be that there is a direct, one-to-one translation from a word in language A to an equivalent word in language B. Most of the ensuing discussion does not make the same mistake, correctly considering translation as a matter of contextual connotation. But there’s also no direct recognition or refutation of that underlying misunderstanding at the top.
So let’s say it explicitly: That is not how languages work. For a word or phrase in language A, there is very rarely a single “best” or “literal” equivalent word or phrase in language B. There is almost always a penumbra of meaning in the original word or phrase, which may center on a matching word in the other language but will encompass other possible words or phrases depending on the scope of the original word and the context of its usage.
For example: I was recently helping my older daughter with her language homework, and I came across a verb I’d never seen before. The sentence was about chopping down a tree, but it didn’t use the common verb most typically used for that action. I did a little reading and searching, and I found a variety of other sample sentences including the verb, from slapping a person across the face to mincing meat. I eventually concluded that the verb was a bit informal, and meant, basically, to strike something, with the connotation that the act is performed with a bit of emotional abandon, and also, possibly, is repeated. If you demanded a single close match in English, I might suggest “to whack.” But in each of the sentences where I found it, it would probably more reasonably be translated as hacking, slapping, or chopping, to give the proper sense of the original meaning to the reader.
Languages are strange like this. And it’s why learning a new language later in life is so difficult, because fluency demands that you internalize the words not with their “direct” translations but with these blurry-edged blobs of subtextual meaning.
A self-reference paradox. Nice.
Rather, the explict assumption of the OP seems to be that there is both a literal and a symbolic translation of this word, not that either translation is one-to-one, nor that the symbolic translation is ‘direct’, nor that the literal translation is correct.
There seems to be an assumption there that “best” is a synonym for “literal”, which was not present in the OP. And given, as you admit, that there may be a “literal” equivalent word or phrase, asking for it is a legitimate request.
Not odd at all to someone who’s intimately familiar with English. We have multiple cases of contradictory meanings.
Sgt Schultz says it means “attention”. Or maybe “Good Morning”.
(For the record, I’d go with “attention”.)
In the case of Nazi’s “Achtung Juden!” can’t it be seen as “Watch out Jews!” Or “Jews beware!”
(Note: I understand only a few words of German and a few more in Dutch.)
That’s what I was thinking. But an earlier poster implied it meant “Watch out - Jews!”. Plausibly, the double meaning is intentional - both telling Jews to watch their backs, and telling Gentiles to avoid this shop.
If you want to find a literal translation you need to take into consideration that “Achtung” is a noun. It is rooted in “etwas achten” (be aware of sth). Use of “Achtung” would be best translated as “Awareness” used as an exclamation - “Attention” works just as well and is much more usual in English.
I prefer not to keep repeating historical crimes, thus I will replace the word Jews with “teachers” and hope it still gets my point across
Adding to the confusion of the OP might be that the expression “Achtung Lehrer” actually misses a comma and is ambiguous even for Germans.
“Achtung, Lehrer” (“Attention, teachers”). This can used to warn other pupils of approaching teachers. Or, it can be used to address a group of teachers in a rather authotarian kind of way. I believe this ambiguity is the same in English as in German.
There is no military order “ten-hut.” In the Army if you don’t say “attention” it will not go well.