# kiezen vs uitkiezen



## yashar

Can somebody please explain what the difference between kiezen and uitkiezen is?
Also, I do not understand why in the sentence below "uit" is separated from "kiezen" and is in front of it:
U kunt kiezen uit wit, zwart, of zilver

I see the same pattern with komen & uitkomen and zien & uitzien. Is there a general rule by which "uit" is applied to verbs?

Thanks a lot!


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## Peterdg

As a native speaker, it is difficult (at least for me) to pinpoint the exact difference between 'kiezen" and "uitkiezen", so I looked it up in "van Dale", which is the de facto standard dictionary for Dutch.

"Kiezen" is "to choose/select".
"Uitkiezen" is "to choose/select from a big number of choices".

About your second question: in your sentence, as far as I'm concerned, it is not the verb "uitkiezen" that is used but it is just the verb "kiezen" followed by the preposition "uit" = "to choose/select from".


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## eno2

Indeed.

Met een paar voorbeelden:
A few examples:

er is van alles, je hebt het maar voor het uitkiezen
het lekkerste, beste, duurste, nuttigste uitkiezen

Nevertheless, they're interchangeable in that meaning.

Kiezen has more meanings: ~nemen (~take). And also the meaning  of 'to elect'.
-iemand tot president, tot afgevaardigde kiezen
------

Thinking of 'cherry picking'. That has to do with a special way of kiezen/uitkiezen. Het beste eruit pikken of er uit pikken.

That could be: het beste eruitkiezen, er uitkiezen  of eruit kiezen  of er uit kiezen. I'm always struggling with aaneenschrijven/joining verbs & prepositions  or not and how to join them, partly or totally . It's a drag....A terrible drag. Terrible.


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## ThomasK

I think there is some perfective aspect involved. If you add the prefix, you have the perfective version of the Original. One can een appel eten, and een appel opeten. In the latter case it is clear that nothing's left. The same holds for _opdrinken_ (uitdrinken), and _uitkiezen_, I think. The same thing holds for English, I think, but not for choosing, though _select_ might be considered the perfective (semantic) version of choosing...

I don't think this works for _zien_ and _uitzien naar_. The latter is more like the figurative version of seeing: I look forward to...


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## eno2

I don't know what perfective means, but If you mean 'exhaustive', (='op') then 'uitkiezen' is not exhaustive. If you select the best (cherry picking), there's a lot left. OK, nothing of the best is left then...But that's not intrinsic to 'uitkiezen'.You'd have to say "al het beste uitkiezen" to be exhaustive...
wiki





> The *perfective aspect* (abbreviated *pfv*), sometimes called the *aoristic aspect*,[1] is a grammatical aspect used to describe an action viewed as a simple whole—a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imperfective aspect, which presents an event as having internal structure (such as ongoing, continuous, or habitual actions). The term _perfective_ should be distinguished from _perfect_ (see below).


 I don't understand a word of this. 

This I understand: 
Free Dic





> In all of the above examples, the action is presented as a complete event ..... We are simply told that the event occurred, with no clues as to _how often_ the actions happened or _how long_ they took.


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## ThomasK

Merriam Webster's: "expressing action as complete or as implying the notion of *completion*, conclusion, or result". That is clearer, I think, and expresses what I meant: eating up an apple is "finishing" it, etc.


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## eno2

Accepting that you're right: 
Why should 'uitkiezen'  be 'perfective'?

From what I read (before you posted the link) in M-W, I gathered perhaps wrongly that 'completion' exclusively referred to the TIME. Completely past. Action completed.
Van Dale heeft 'perfectief' ook.


> tot volmaking, voltooiing brengend
> a taalkunde een voltooide handeling uitdrukkend
> perfectieve werkwoorden+ duratieve werkwoorden


Gaat in jouw richting.



> Het *perfectieve aspect* is een aspect van werkwoorden dat in zeer veel talen aanwezig is. Door middel van dit aspect wordt tot uiting gebracht dat de genoemde handeling als zodanig geheel tot het verleden behoort,


Perfectief aspect - Wikipedia

Hier wordt  mijn TIJD interpretatie  weer beklemtoond. Tja, ik weet het niet...


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## ThomasK

Of course... There is the aspect and there is the meaning.

I am not referring to an aspect [time-related] in grammar [Russian has 8 aspects or...], but to a type of verbs. When you eat an apple, you don't suggest that you are eating it all but you may. If you eat up an apple, the result is clear.

End & goal: there is a link in that a goal is an end, a point you're working "towards", some "final" point. That's why 'vergroten' is perfective: after that activity things are big(ger).

I think 'uitkiezen' (select) is referring to the end result (choice made), 'kiezen' concerns the action and may include the result. I hope I am right! ;-)


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## eno2

I'll leave this thread because I'm too unsure about a few things.
Unsure about the difference between 'het beste eruit kiezen' en 'het beste uitkiezen'
Unsure about joining or not joining prepositions together or together  with the verb (#3);  Het beste er uit kiezen, het beste eruit kiezen, het beste er uitkiezen, het beste uitkiezen.. Kies er het beste uit. Kies het beste uit.
Unsure about 'perfective', though I got some idea now.


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## ThomasK

I agree: things are very subtle. The only thing I was interested in was the reason for the variation I referred to (with prefix, and without). It is a typical aspect of Dutch - and certainly to some extent of English - and I'd like to read more about it.


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## sanne78

Mijn voorstel:

Je gebruikt *uitkiezen *als je kunt kiezen uit verschillende mogelijkheiden. En meestal iets dat je dan mag meenemen of gebruiken.
I would suggest:
You can use _*uitkiezen*_ when can choose from different possibilities. And often something that you can take home of that you can use.

_                    Je mag een boek uitkiezen.  (uit een boekenkast)  
                    Ik mocht iets uitkiezen uit de speelgoedwinkel.
_

Je gebruikt _*kiezen *_voornamelijk als je een beperkte keuze hebt.
You can use _*kiezen*_ when you have a limited choice.

_ Hij moest kiezen tussen een nieuwe broek of een nieuwe trui.
                 Ik kan kiezen uit wiskunde, Duits, Spaans en economie.

@yashar "U kunt kiezen uit wit, zwart, of zilver." belongs to the second 'category'. It is the verb *kiezen* and not *uitkiezen*, as Peterdg said as well.
 

_


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## ThomasK

Dat zou de logica kunnen zijn, al aarzel ik nog wel. Maar met die proviso 'voornamelijk' lijkt je vermoeden mij prima.


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