allavsPauWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: alla is a determiner, Pau is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“alla” is a determiner and “Pau” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,004
“alla” frequency rank
#49,946
“Pau” frequency rank
72950
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alla Pau
Definition Zusammensetzung der Präposition a und dem Artikel la Stadt in Südfrankreich

Letter map: alla vs Pau

Shared letters muted; letters that set alla and Pau apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. alla runs 4 letters (VCCV) against Pau's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
alla
3 ch
Pau

Grammar separator: alla vs Pau

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alla is adeterminer and Pauaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72950, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alla is recorded at frequency rank #23,004, classified as adet, pronounced […]. Pau is at rank #49,946, tagged as aname, pronounced […].

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 72950, this pair ranks #373,918 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of alla vs Pau

Shared letters: a. Private to "alla": l. Private to "Pau": pu.

"alla" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "Pau" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "alla" for "Pau" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alla" is a determiner and "Pau" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "alla" or "Pau" show up more?
"alla" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,004 in our German list, against #49,946 for "Pau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "alla" vs "Pau" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alla" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Pau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #373,918 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alla" and "Pau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pau vs puzzles". 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 #373,918 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