anderenvsanhörenWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: anderen is a unknown, anhören is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“anderen” is an unknown and “anhören” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#135
“anderen” frequency rank
#6,143
“anhören” frequency rank
6278
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature anderen anhören
Definition Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Indefinitpronomens anderer jemandem (aufmerksam) zuhören; jemandem (vor allem vor Gericht) Gehör schenken

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set anderen and anhören apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch
anderen
7 ch
anhören

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: anderen is [ˈandəʁən] while anhören is [ˈanˌhøːʁən]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (unknown vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6278, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

anderen is recorded at frequency rank #135, classified as anunknown, pronounced [ˈandəʁən]. anhören is at rank #6,143, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈanˌhøːʁən].

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 6278, this pair ranks #1,992,169 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of anderen vs anhören

Shared letters: aenr. Private to "anderen": d. Private to "anhören": .

"anderen" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC  ·  "anhören" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • anderenadneren · andderen · andeern · anderenn · anderne · anderren · andreen · anedren

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "anderen" and "anhören" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "anderen" is an unknown and "anhören" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "anderen" or "anhören"?
"anderen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #135 in our German list, against #6,143 for "anhören". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list