易混词汇辨析：“同情”是“empathy”还是“sympathy”

1Empathy /'ɛmpəθi/

英语中empathy 一词的典型义项为“感同身受”。

Empathy denotes the ability to understand and share the feelings of another (having shared the same, or a similar, experience).

Empathy(同理心)是你有能力站在别人的立场上看待他们现在经历的事情，并且能体会到他们的感受。有一部分是因为你自己以前也经历过这些事情。

心理学家Edward Titchener(爱德华·特切纳)于1909年用英文“feeling into(感觉到)”来翻译德国单词Einfühlung，即“empathy” 是可以识别和分享感受他人情绪的。

Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to understand that person’s situation.

Empathy需要能够从他们的角度认识到他人的痛苦，从某一层面来讲，他们也经历过类似的情况。

例：

I have empathy for your problem. I've been there.

我对你的问题有同感。我也经历过。

Having been late to work many times himself, the boss had empathy on the employee who was late.

由于老板自己上班也迟到过多次，所以老板对迟到的员工感同身受。

In the example above, the boss, having been late to work himself, had empathy for and understood why the employee was late for work.

在上面的例子中，老板自己也迟到了，他对员工迟到的原因表示同情并理解。

2Sympathy

Sympathy denotes feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.

Sympathy(同情) 是你理解别人或遗憾或悲伤的感受。

例：

He felt great sympathy for these people.

他很同情这些人。

I have no sympathy for Jan, it's all her own fault.

我不同情简，那都是她自己的错。

小窍门

You can remember that sympathy deals with sorrows and feeling sorry for someone because it starts with an S. Similarly, you can remember that empathy is more personal and requires you to put yourself in that person's shoes. Shoes and empathy both have an E in them.

你可以记住，与“sorrow”和“sorry”有关的sympathy都是以s开头的。类似的，empathy则更个人化，需要你设身处地为他人着想，而“shoes”和“empathy”都有一个E。