duovsiiTell them apart

Quick tell: duo is a num, ii is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“duo” is a num and “ii” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,822
“duo” frequency rank
#520
“ii” frequency rank
6342
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature duo ii
Definition zwei Nominativ Plural Maskulinum des Pronomens is

Letter map: duo vs ii

Shared letters muted; letters that set duo and ii apart highlighted. No shared letter run.

3 ch
duo
2 ch
ii

Part-of-speech tell for duo / ii

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: duo is anum and iianunknown. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6342, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

duo is recorded at frequency rank #5,822, classified as anum, pronounced […]. ii is at rank #520, tagged as anunknown, pronounced […].

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 6342, this pair ranks #1,991,970 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of duo vs ii

Shared letters: none. Private to "duo": dou. Private to "ii": i.

"duo" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "ii" · 2 letters · shape VV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "duo" for "ii" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "duo" is a num and "ii" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "duo" or "ii"?
"ii" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #520 in our German list, against #5,822 for "duo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "duo" and "ii". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "duo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ii" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,991,970 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "duo" and "ii" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duo vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,991,970 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