dankevsdünneWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: danke is a particle, dünne is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“danke” is a particle and “dünne” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#212
“danke” frequency rank
#9,353
“dünne” frequency rank
9565
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature danke dünne
Definition Wort, das man benutzt, um seinen Dank auszudrücken Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs dünn

Where the eye mixes danke and dünne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. danke and dünne follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
danke
5 ch
dünne

Why the eye confuses danke with dünne

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: danke is [ˈdaŋkə] while dünne is [ˈdʏnə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (particle vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9565, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

danke is recorded at frequency rank #212, classified as aparticle, pronounced [ˈdaŋkə]. dünne is at rank #9,353, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈdʏnə].

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 9565, this pair ranks #1,979,354 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of danke vs dünne

Shared letters: den. Private to "danke": ak. Private to "dünne": ü.

"danke" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "dünne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dankeadnke · dakne · danek · dankke · dannke · ddanke · dnake

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "danke" and "dünne" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "danke" is a particle and "dünne" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "danke" or "dünne"?
"danke" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #212 in our German list, against #9,353 for "dünne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "danke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dünne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,979,354 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "danke" and "dünne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Düne vs dünne". 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 #1,979,354 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