caravscharWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#28,125
“cara” frequency rank
#31,983
“char” frequency rank
60108
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cara char
Definition Freund Fuder, Fuhre, Karren, Wagen, Fuhrwerk, Förderwagen, Hund, Hunt, Laufkatze

Where the eye mixes cara and char

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cara
4 ch
char

Look-alike desk: cara vs char

A purely visual mix-up. cara ([karə]) and char ([ʃaʁ]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60108, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cara is recorded at frequency rank #28,125, classified as anoun, pronounced [karə]. char is at rank #31,983, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ʃaʁ].

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 60108, this pair ranks #799,277 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cara vs char

Shared letters: acr. Private to "cara": -. Private to "char": h.

"cara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "char" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caraacra · caar · carra · ccara · craa
  • charcahr · cchar · charr · chhar · chra · hcar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cara" for "char" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([karə] versus [ʃaʁ]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cara" or "char"?
"cara" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,125 in our German list, against #31,983 for "char". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "char" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #799,277 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cara" and "char" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "carr vs char". 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 #799,277 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