Difference between 关注 and 注意?

[Zephie]

大家好

 

I was just wondering if anyone knows if there is one?

 

I recently learnt the structure “要注意的是。。。” （One should pay attention to the fact that....）but then came across “关注的是。。。” today in a text.  According to Pleco they both translate to the same thing in English, and they both have the “注” aspect but I can't tell if they are supposed to convey a different meaning?

 

Also sorry if this is in the wrong place, if it is then please let me know！

[tooironic]

注意 = 留心

关注 = 特别注意

 

To put it simply, 注意 means to pay attention to, while 关注 means to follow with interest. The former term implies that you take notice of something, while the latter implies that are you concerned about something.

 

Some common collocations:

 

引起注意 - "attract attention"

 

注意安全 - literally, "pay attention to safety" - idiomatically, "be careful", "exercise caution" or "take care"

 

关注X的发展 - "follow the development of X"

 

X的问题受到关注 - literally, "the issue of X receives following/interest" - idiomatically, "the issue of X is a concern"

 

Hope that helps.

[Lianbu Zhou]

注意 = Be cautious/ Attention for situations in which you should be very careful.

 

For example, you could find a sign said "注意过往车辆" when you try to cross a highway. （注意过往车辆 = Mind passing vehicles）

 

注意 could be used to warn someone about the unsafe situations, actually it is related to unsafe situations but also could be used as "focus" like 注意细节 focus on details

 

关注 = Be curious for sth and you try to know more about it.

 

For example,

 

我关注国际新闻，I pay attention to international news.

 

我很关注那个漂亮的女生的信息， I pay a lot of attention to that pretty girl.

 

Hope my reply could be helpful!

[eshton]

For me, the key difference is that 关注 usually indicates paying special attention to something. I like to relate it to the social networking(twitter) concept of following (a topic, company, celebrity etc), I think even weibo and renren use 关注 in that sense.

[Zephie]

谢谢! to all three of you for clearing that up for me.  Your explanations were very helpful