Why do I need to know wählen?
You’re bound to read and hear this word used in a number of ways this week, especially over the weekend as Germans go to the polls to cast their votes.
But the word is also useful to know after the elections. You can use it anytime you’re encouraging someone to make a choice.
What does it mean?
Wählen, pronounced like this, is an action word that means “to choose” or “to decide”.
It’s closely related to the noun, die Wahl, which can be used to mean both “choice” or “election”.
A federal election, like the upcoming federal election set to take place on Sunday, February 23rd, is called die Bundeswahl or Bundestagswahl.
That’s why, if you were to run an online search for either ‘wahl’ or ‘wählen’ right now, you’ll find a slurry of headlines related to the upcoming election, such as this one published by Germany’s Agency for Civic Education: “11 Dinge zur Bundestagswahl, die Du wissen musst” (11 things you must know about the federal election).
READ ALSO: German word of the day - Entschlossen
What makes wählen interesting, from an English perspective, is that it has more versatility than “vote”.
The English term is typically limited to a decision in which you select one out of a number of options, as you do when you vote for elected officials or when you vote for the best option of a given choice.
But in German you can also use the term for more broad decisions. For example, you could use the term at a cafe if you’re asking someone if they’ve already decided what they’d like to drink: Haben Sie schon etwas zum Trinken gewählt?
If you're overwhelmed by choices and simply can't decide, German also has a useful saying - Die Qual der Wahl - which can be translated as the agony or the tyranny of choice.
Interestingly, wählen is also used as the verb "to dial" regarding numbers on a telephone. For example, to dial the emergency services is "den Notruf wählen".
Use it like this:
Welche Partei haben Sie gewählt?
Which party did you vote for?
Sie wählte ihre Worte sorgfältig aus.
She chose her words carefully.
Er hat die falsche Nummer gewählt.
He dialled the wrong number.
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