caution
noun · Verwarnung
Caution is two different things and neither is safe as a single German word. The out-of-court disposal an offender accepts, admitting the offence and putting it onto a record, has no exact German twin, an Einstellung gegen Auflagen, § 153a StPO, needs no admission and is no conviction, while the Verwarnung mit Strafvorbehalt, § 59 StGB, is a conviction with the penalty reserved. To caution a suspect, by contrast, is the rights warning before questioning, the Belehrung of § 136 StPO. Rendering one as the other swaps a disposal for a procedural safeguard.
Which translation, when
Why
English caution carries two unrelated meanings and the output cannot tell them apart. As a disposal, an offender who admits an offence may accept a caution instead of prosecution, it avoids court but is recorded and can surface later, but its nearest German devices differ from it in telling ways, the Einstellung gegen Auflagen of § 153a StPO needs no admission, is no conviction and does not enter the Führungszeugnis, while the Verwarnung mit Strafvorbehalt of § 59 StGB is a conviction with the penalty reserved and is entered in the register. As procedure, to caution is to administer the warning before an interview, the right to silence and to legal advice, which in German law is the Belehrung of § 136 StPO, the counterpart to the English caution words themselves. The two senses point at opposite ends of a case, one is a way of ending it, the other a safeguard at its start, so the wrong choice is not a shade of meaning but a category error, a disposal that leaves a record read as a bare procedural warning, or a warning of rights read as a penalty.
Typical mistakes
- A caution as a disposal is not a Belehrung, an Einstellung gegen Auflagen, § 153a StPO, or a Verwarnung mit Strafvorbehalt, § 59 StGB, is meant, and rendering it as a rights warning empties it of its consequence.
- To caution before questioning is the Belehrung, § 136 StPO, not a sanction, so translating it as Verwarnung invents a penalty where only a warning of rights was given.
- A caution as a disposal is recorded and can be cited later, so treating it as if nothing formal happened understates it and misleads on the person’s record.
What matters
A suspect’s account of a police-station encounter, I was cautioned against I accepted a caution: the first is the Belehrung of § 136 StPO, a warning of rights, the second a disposal nearer an Einstellung gegen Auflagen, § 153a StPO, or a Verwarnung mit Strafvorbehalt, § 59 StGB, and the single English word forces the translator to choose, because the German devices share nothing.
What the machine misses
Caution comes back as Verwarnung or Belehrung more or less at random, and the two are not variants of one idea, one is an out-of-court disposal an offender accepts by admitting the offence, whose nearest German devices are an Einstellung gegen Auflagen, § 153a StPO, or a Verwarnung mit Strafvorbehalt, § 59 StGB, the other the § 136 StPO warning of the right to silence given before questioning. The output picks one reading and hides the other, so a translated caution can turn a case-ending disposal into a mere procedural warning, or a warning of rights into a penalty that was never imposed.
Examples
| to caution a suspect | einen Beschuldigten belehren |
| the suspect was cautioned | der Beschuldigte wurde belehrt |
| to accept a caution | eine Einstellung gegen Auflagen akzeptieren |