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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

> In Spanish, you “lend” attention. In Swedish, you “are” attention.

In Hebrew you "place [your] heart" (lasim lev).

In Japanese (注意を払う), you pay attention, much like in English. However, the verb 払う also means "to sweep away" or "to clear" suggesting a sense of effort or focus in clearing distractions to direct attention

In Korean 신경 쓰다 literally means "to use nerves." The idea of investing mental energy into something

In Finnish, you fasten or attach attention (kiinnittaa huomiota)

In Turkish, you give attention, expending your mental capability.

Ha, I was just recently thinking about what you do with attention in different languages. In my native Bulgarian (обръщам внимание) you “turn” your attention as in you “direct” it. Same word for when you turn a page. Like you have but a single attention and it’s up to you where you direct it.

In French (correct me if I’m wrong) you “make” attention, « faire attention ». Like there’s unlimited amount of attention and you can always make more.

In Russian, you "spare" attention by "making" it. The word 'уделять' shares the same root with the word that means - 'deed', 'doing', 'act' or 'affair'.

No, it's a different etymological root. A better translation would be to say that you give a share of your attention (делить's meaning is to divide).

Ah, right. I completely missed the difference between 'делать' and 'делить'.

In German, you "direct" attention at something or "gift" attention to someone.

What German phrase did you have in mind? Because the idiomatic translation of "to pay attention" is "aufpassen", which literally translates to something like "pass on" or "fit on".

"jemandem Aufmerksamkeit schenken", "Aufmerksamkeit auf etwas richten"

You can't rip apart that word into "auf" and "passen" and then individually translate them literally. The result seems nonsensical. I would say "aufpassen" is literally "be attentive" / "be watchful".

Edit: "to pay attention" is literally "Aufmerksamkeit zollen"

> You can't rip apart that word into "auf" and "passen" and then individually translate them literally.

Sure, just like you can't separate "pay attention". Both are idiomatic. But you can separate "aufpassen" into "Paß auf". (For the benefit of non-German lurkers, "Paß auf" is a command to pay attention.)

Replying to your powershell comment from 30d back-- you won't use aliases, you'd type g-ci <tab> for get-ChildItem

I would translate "aufpassen" more with "to attend" or "to watch over".

The literal analogue to "pass on" or "fit on" is "anpassen"; "auf" generally means "over", "on/to the top of".

In German, you “give eight”. ;)

This made me laugh :D!

Absolutely mind/world-expanding. Thanks for sharing. The Swedish version reminds me of (the now "disgraced" but his Proust book is cool journalist) Lehrer's chapter on Virginia Woolfe in Proust Was a Neuroscientist, where he claims that "attention _is_ consciousness" in Woolf's then-novel stream of consciousness style in To the Lighthouse.

This is buddhism and mindfulness in a nutshell. The only thing about your existence that does not change is that which is aware.

In Swedish it's "var uppmärksam" which is more like "be attentive" - same as in English. They just use the adjective form more.

> In Swedish, you “are” attention.

Which phrase would this be?

If it is similar to german, then it would be that you are attented.

”Vara fokuserad” I think. Or ”vara koncentrerad”. Maybe ”uppmärksam” is a better translation of the word?

But ”have” attention exists for both of those as well. ”Ha fokus”.

Huh, I never placed my heart to it

Mandarin Chinese: 注意 (zhùyì) - "note/record intention" Spanish: prestar atención - "lend attention" English: pay attention - "give/spend attention" Hindi: ध्यान देना (dhyaan dena) - "give meditation/focus" Arabic: انتبه (intabih) - "be alert/awake" ...

https://pastebin.com/3ghPnjb9

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