BürdevsBurmaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Bürde is a noun, Burma is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Bürde” is a noun and “Burma” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,507
“Bürde” frequency rank
#38,661
“Burma” frequency rank
72168
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Bürde Burma
Definition Last mit hohem Gewicht ein Land in Südostasien

Where the eye mixes Bürde and Burma

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Bürde and Burma follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Bürde
5 ch
Burma

Visual trap between Bürde and Burma

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Bürde is [ˈbʏʁdə] while Burma is [ˈbʊʁmaː]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72168, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Bürde is recorded at frequency rank #33,507, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈbʏʁdə]. Burma is at rank #38,661, tagged as aname, pronounced [ˈbʊʁmaː].

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 72168, this pair ranks #395,871 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Bürde vs Burma

Shared letters: br. Private to "Bürde": deü. Private to "Burma": amu.

"Bürde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Burma" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Burma ← bburma · bruma · bumra · buram · burmma · burrma · ubrma

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Bürde" and "Burma" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Bürde" is a noun and "Burma" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Bürde" or "Burma"?
"Bürde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,507 in our German list, against #38,661 for "Burma". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Bürde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Burma" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,871 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Bürde" and "Burma" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Burma vs burt". 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 #395,871 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