eenvsEinsConfusable pair

Quick tell: een is a num, Eins is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“een” is a num and “Eins” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,012
“een” frequency rank
#923
“Eins” frequency rank
33935
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature een Eins
Definition eins; einer; ein einziger die natürliche Zahl zwischen Null und Zwei

Letter map: een vs Eins

Shared letters muted; letters that set een and Eins apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. een runs 3 letters (VVC) against Eins's 4 (VVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
een
4 ch
Eins

Part-of-speech tell for een / Eins

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: een is anum and Einsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33935, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

een is recorded at frequency rank #33,012, classified as anum, pronounced […]. Eins is at rank #923, tagged as anoun, pronounced [aɪ̯ns].

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 33935, this pair ranks #1,674,763 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of een vs Eins

Shared letters: en. Private to "een": -. Private to "Eins": is.

"een" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "Eins" · 4 letters · shape VVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Eins ← einns · einss · eisn · enis · iens

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "een" and "Eins" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "een" is a num and "Eins" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "een" or "Eins" show up more?
"Eins" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #923 in our German list, against #33,012 for "een". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "een" and "Eins". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "een" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Eins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,674,763 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "een" and "Eins" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "een vs puzzles". 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 #1,674,763 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