altenvsAnnenWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: alten is a adjective, Annen is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“alten” is an adjective and “Annen” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#416
“alten” frequency rank
#41,021
“Annen” frequency rank
41437
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alten Annen
Definition Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Adjektivs alt Dativ Plural des Substantivs Ann

Letter map: alten vs Annen

Shared letters muted; letters that set alten and Annen apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. alten and Annen follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
alten
5 ch
Annen

Grammar separator: alten vs Annen

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alten is anadjective and Annenanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41437, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alten is recorded at frequency rank #416, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈaltn̩]. Annen is at rank #41,021, tagged as anoun, 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 41437, this pair ranks #1,479,444 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of alten vs Annen

Shared letters: aen. Private to "alten": lt. Private to "Annen": -.

"alten" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "Annen" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alten ← aletn · allten · altenn · altne · altten · atlen · laten
  • Annen ← anenn · annenn · annne · nanen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "alten" and "Annen" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alten" is an adjective and "Annen" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "alten" vs "Annen" - which ranks higher?
"alten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #416 in our German list, against #41,021 for "Annen". 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 "alten" and "Annen". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alten" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Annen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,479,444 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alten" and "Annen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Annen 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 #1,479,444 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