begründetvsbegründeteTell them apart

Which to use

“begründet” and “begründete” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,711
“begründet” frequency rank
#6,766
“begründete” frequency rank
10477
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature begründet begründete
Definition berechtigt; mit einem Grund, einer Ursache belegt Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Flexion des Positivs des Adjektivs begründet

Where the eye mixes begründet and begründete

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. begründet runs 9 letters (CVCCVCCVC) against begründete's 10 (CVCCVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
begründet
10 ch
begründete

Visual trap between begründet and begründete

A purely visual mix-up. begründet ([bəˈɡʁʏndət]) and begründete ([bəˈɡʁʏndətə]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “begründet” sits inside “begründete”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10477, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

begründet is recorded at frequency rank #3,711, classified as anadj, pronounced [bəˈɡʁʏndət]. begründete is at rank #6,766, tagged as anadj, pronounced [bəˈɡʁʏndətə].

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 10477, this pair ranks #1,974,929 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of begründet vs begründete

Shared letters: bdegnrtü. Private to "begründet": -. Private to "begründete": -.

"begründet" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC  ·  "begründete" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "begründet" and "begründete" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([bəˈɡʁʏndət] versus [bəˈɡʁʏndətə]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "begründet" or "begründete" show up more?
"begründet" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,711 in our German list, against #6,766 for "begründete". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "begründet" and "begründete" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "begründet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "begründete" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,974,929 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "begründet" and "begründete" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "begründete vs bekundete". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,974,929 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