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Respect: 尊敬 vs 尊重

#1

Dear Qing Wen, with all due respect,

I still get confused with the terminology for respect in Chinese.

How do you say “I respect his skill, but I don’t respect the person?”

As I understand it there are different ways to express the different concepts that are covered by the English term “respect”.

The idea that we should respect our elders is different from the idea contained in I respect your need for personal space.

For example, another hard to express saying, for me, is “If you respect your tools, you won’t use a chisel as a screwdriver.” At a funeral we “pay our respects” to the deceased.

Is there any possibility that clearing this up might be worthy of a future episode of “Qingwen”?

Respectfully,

A Rice Eater in Taiwan

#2

尊敬（vt.）：尊敬（长辈）
（n.）：（受人）尊敬 尊敬的（各位老师、领导、来宾）
尊重（vt.）：尊重（你、你的选择、你的想法）
（vi.）：相互尊重
（n.）：赢得别人的尊重

尊敬:一般是对长辈上级,
尊重:用于所有人(平辈之间).

#3

Hi, I’m new to the forums and have just started “learning” Chinese (essentially still at the stage of browsing different resources).

I’ve studied Japanese and those terms also often cause confusion for non-NSJs.

Based on my experience, the left hand term is more akin to admiration such as for a famous person or if someone does something great that inspires you to be more like them (hero worship, etc.), whereas the right hand term is closer to respecting someone’s right to exist (human rights), right to freedom, etc.

I would guess that the concept of “respecting your elders” is closer to the meaning of the left hand word than that of the right and that the concepts of “respecting your tools” and “respecting your personal space” are closer to the meaning of the right-hand word than that of the left.

I’m no linguist, but I feel that “pay your respects” is more of an idiom that refers to expressing compassion for the loss felt by the person.

It is possible to express this in Japanese with “ご愁傷様です” (essentially “I’m sorry for your loss” or “my condolences”). The first and last two characters are only in Japanese, but the other three characters may be understandable and/or have an equivalent in Chinese (I’m pretty sure there is an equivalent in most languages and cultures).

I hope this helps to clarify your understanding of the two terms at question.

Adam

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#4

Hi @xiaoweify, I still confuse how to use 尊敬 and 尊重.
Can you show example how to correctly use this 2 words?

Thank you!

Eddie

#5

Hi Eddie,

What @xiaoweify means is that 尊敬 [zūn jìng] is typically used to express respect towards elderly people or someone who’s status is higher than yours, e.d. teachers. Where 尊重 [zūn zhòng] is more a general respect term that can be used in many different situations. For example, to say “Please respect your grandparents”, we would use 尊敬:

  • 请尊敬你的外公外婆. [qǐng zūn jìng nǐ de wài gōng wài pó]

In another case, if we wanted to say, on a personal level, “please respect my ideas”:

  • 请尊重我的想法. [qǐng zūn zhòng wǒ de xiǎng fǎ]

Hopefully this clears things up.