# be vs bu

> German confusable word pair

## The two words

### be
*verb · IPA [biː] · frequency rank #1,621*
sein, existieren

### bu
*verb · IPA [by] · frequency rank #15,054*
Partizip Perfekt Maskulinum Singular des Verbs boire

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/de/vs/be-vs-bu