AffevsareWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Affe is a noun, are is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Affe” is a noun and “are” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,017
“Affe” frequency rank
#4,019
“are” frequency rank
16036
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Affe are
Definition Säugetier aus der Unterordnung Anthropoidea in der Ordnung der Primaten 2. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens des Verbs be

Where the eye mixes Affe and are

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Affe
3 ch
are

Look-alike desk: Affe vs are

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Affe is [ˈafə] while are is [ə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16036, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Affe is recorded at frequency rank #12,017, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈafə]. are is at rank #4,019, tagged as averb, pronounced [ə].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 16036, this pair ranks #1,939,140 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Affe vs are

Shared letters: ae. Private to "Affe": f. Private to "are": r.

"Affe" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "are" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Affeafe · afef · fafe

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Affe" and "are" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Affe" is a noun and "are" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Affe" or "are"?
"are" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,019 in our German list, against #12,017 for "Affe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Affe" and "are" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Affe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "are" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,939,140 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Affe" and "are" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Affe vs Atze". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,939,140 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list