Breakdown of Jeg gav min stemme til en ung kandidat.
jeg
I
en
a / an (common)
min
my
til
to (preposition) / for (purpose) / at (an event or occasion) / at (good at something)
give
to give
ung
young
kandidaten
the candidate
stemmen
the vote (one person's vote)
Questions & Answers about Jeg gav min stemme til en ung kandidat.
The word stemme usually means "voice". Does it always mean "vote" in a political context?
Yes! In Danish, en stemme means both a physical voice and a political vote. If you want to say "to vote", you use the verb at stemme, usually followed by the preposition på (e.g., jeg stemte på en ung kandidat - I voted for a young candidate).
Could I write this without the word til, like "Jeg gav en ung kandidat min stemme"?
Yes, you can. Just like in English, Danish allows a double object construction where the indirect object comes first: Jeg gav en ung kandidat min stemme (I gave a young candidate my vote). Using til puts a little more emphasis on the recipient, which sounds very natural in this sentence.
Why is it ung here and not unge?
Because en kandidat is an indefinite, singular, common-gender noun, so the adjective ung stays in its base form. You would only add the -e if it were plural (unge kandidater) or definite (den unge kandidat). Learners sometimes mistakenly add an -e because the definite phrase den unge is so frequently heard in Danish.
Is "at give sin stemme til" the most common way to say you voted for someone?
It is grammatically correct and perfectly natural, but it sounds a bit formal or deliberate, much like "I gave my vote to..." in English. In everyday conversation, a Dane would more likely just use the verb directly and say Jeg stemte på en ung kandidat (I voted for a young candidate).
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