FachsvsflachWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Fachs is a noun, flach is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Fachs” is a noun and “flach” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,862
“Fachs” frequency rank
#5,830
“flach” frequency rank
49692
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Fachs flach
Definition Genitiv Singular des Substantivs Fach ohne größere Erhebungen und Vertiefungen

Where the eye mixes Fachs and flach

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Fachs
5 ch
flach

Look-alike desk: Fachs vs flach

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Fachs is [faxs] while flach is [flax]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49692, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Fachs is recorded at frequency rank #43,862, classified as anoun, pronounced [faxs]. flach is at rank #5,830, tagged as anadj, pronounced [flax].

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 49692, this pair ranks #1,201,892 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Fachs vs flach

Shared letters: acfh. Private to "Fachs": s. Private to "flach": l.

"Fachs" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "flach" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Fachsafchs · facchs · fachhs · fachss · facsh · fahcs · fcahs · ffachs
  • flachfalch · fflach · flacch · flachh · flahc · flcah · fllach · lfach

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Fachs" and "flach" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Fachs" is a noun and "flach" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Fachs" or "flach" show up more?
"flach" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,830 in our German list, against #43,862 for "Fachs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Fachs" and "flach" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Fachs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "flach" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,201,892 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Fachs" and "flach" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fachs vs Fakes". 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 #1,201,892 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