alsvsataWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: als is a conjunction, ata is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“als” is a conjunction and “ata” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24
“als” frequency rank
#46,479
“ata” frequency rank
46503
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature als ata
Definition der dem als folgende Part ist der mindere (weniger) oder der größere (mehr) sie

Letter map: als vs ata

Shared letters muted; letters that set als and ata apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
als
3 ch
ata

Part-of-speech tell for als / ata

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: als is aconjunction and ataapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46503, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

als is recorded at frequency rank #24, classified as aconj, pronounced [als]. ata is at rank #46,479, tagged as apron, 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 46503, this pair ranks #1,316,821 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of als vs ata

Shared letters: a. Private to "als": ls. Private to "ata": t.

"als" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "ata" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "als" and "ata" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "als" is a conjunction and "ata" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "als" or "ata" show up more?
"als" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24 in our German list, against #46,479 for "ata". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "als" and "ata".

  • Full dictionary entry for "als" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ata" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,316,821 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "als" and "ata" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ata vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,316,821 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