dad vs du, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“dad” is a noun and “du” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,875
“dad” frequency rank: #38
“du” frequency rank: 9913
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dad	du
Definition	Vater, Papa	der Angesprochene oder Angeschriebene, falls nicht die Höflichkeitsform Sie verwendet wird

Where the eye mixes dad and du

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

dad

2 ch

Why the eye confuses dad with du

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dad is [dæd] while du is [duː]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9913, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dad is recorded at frequency rank #9,875, classified as anoun, pronounced [dæd]. du is at rank #38, tagged as apron, pronounced [duː].

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 9913, this pair ranks #1,977,683 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dad vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "dad": a. Private to "du": u.

"dad" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "du" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dad" for "du" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dad" is a noun and "du" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "dad" vs "du" - which ranks higher?

"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 in our German list, against #9,875 for "dad". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "dad" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,977,683 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"dad" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dad vs duc". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,977,683 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.