wahrnehmen

Wahrnehmen is a German verb meaning to perceive, to notice, or to become aware of something through the senses or through mental processing. It covers both direct sensory input, such as seeing or feeling something, and a more interpretive or cognitive awareness, such as recognizing a pattern or realizing a situation.

In everyday use, wahrnehmen often describes noticing details in the environment: Ich nehme einen Geruch wahr. It can also introduce a clause that conveys awareness of a fact: Ich nehme wahr, dass er müde ist. The past participle is wahrgenommen and is used in passive constructions or as an attributive or main-participial form: Die Geräusche wurden wahrgenommen.

Grammatically, wahrnehmen is conjugated like a strong verb: ich nehme wahr, du nimmst wahr, er nimmt wahr; wir nehmen wahr, ihr nehmt wahr, sie nehmen wahr. The inflected forms align with nehmen, and the past tense is nahm wahr, nahm wahr. The word can appear with various objects in the accusative: etwas wahrnehmen. It is closely related to nouns and adjectives such as Wahrnehmung (perception, awareness) and wahrnehmbar (perceivable).

Usage notes and scope: wahrnehmen is broader than pure visual perception (sehen) and is often contrasted with übersehen (to overlook). It also bears philosophical and psychological weight, referring to how stimuli are processed and interpreted by a perceiving subject. In practice, wahrnehmen denotes both immediate sensory intake and the subsequent cognitive marking or interpretation of that input.