albernvsallenWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: albern is a adjective, allen is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“albern” is an adjective and “allen” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,585
“albern” frequency rank
#276
“allen” frequency rank
11861
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature albern allen
Definition in unpassender und dummer Art lustig Dativ Plural des Indefinitpronomens all

Where the eye mixes albern and allen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
albern
5 ch
allen

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: albern is [ˈalbɐn] while allen is [ˈalən]. 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 (adjective vs unknown), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11861, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

albern is recorded at frequency rank #11,585, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈalbɐn]. allen is at rank #276, tagged as anunknown, pronounced [ˈalən].

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 11861, this pair ranks #1,967,511 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of albern vs allen

Shared letters: aeln. Private to "albern": br. Private to "allen": -.

"albern" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC  ·  "allen" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • albernablern · albbern · albenr · albernn · alberrn · albren · alebrn · allbern
  • allenaleln · alen · allenn · allne · lalen

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "albern" and "allen" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "albern" is an adjective and "allen" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "albern" or "allen"?
"allen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #276 in our German list, against #11,585 for "albern". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "albern" and "allen". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "albern" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "allen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,967,511 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "albern" and "allen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "albern vs Alleen". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list