duvsduchWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: du is a pronoun, duch is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#38
“du” frequency rank
#48,829
“duch” frequency rank
48867
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature du duch
Definition der Angesprochene oder Angeschriebene, falls nicht die Höflichkeitsform Sie verwendet wird gedankliche, nicht körperliche Eigenschaften des Menschen: Geist

Where the eye mixes du and duch

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch
du
4 ch
duch

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: du is [duː] while duch is [dʊx]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “du” sits inside “duch”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

du is recorded at frequency rank #38, classified as apron, pronounced [duː]. duch is at rank #48,829, tagged as anoun, pronounced [dʊx].

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 48867, this pair ranks #1,232,608 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of du vs duch

Shared letters: du. Private to "du": -. Private to "duch": ch.

"du" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "duch" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • duchdcuh · dduch · ducch · duchh · duhc · udch

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "du" and "duch" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "du" is a pronoun and "duch" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "du" or "duch"?
"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 in our German list, against #48,829 for "duch". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "du" and "duch". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "du" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duch" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,232,608 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "du" and "duch" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duch vs dusch". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list