FaltevsfastWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Falte is a noun, fast is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Falte” is a noun and “fast” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,524
“Falte” frequency rank
#243
“fast” frequency rank
40767
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Falte fast
Definition längliche Unebenheit in ebenen, glatten Oberflächen insbesondere bei textilen Stoffen, Papier, Haut und Ähnlichem nicht ganz

Where the eye mixes Falte and fast

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Falte
4 ch
fast

Visual trap between Falte and fast

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Falte is [ˈfaltə] while fast is [fast]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40767, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Falte is recorded at frequency rank #40,524, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈfaltə]. fast is at rank #243, tagged as anadv, pronounced [fast].

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 40767, this pair ranks #1,498,892 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Falte vs fast

Shared letters: aft. Private to "Falte": el. Private to "fast": s.

"Falte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "fast" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Falteaflte · falet · fallte · faltte · fatle · ffalte · flate
  • fastafst · fastt · fats · ffast · fsat

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Falte" and "fast" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Falte" is a noun and "fast" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Falte" vs "fast" - which ranks higher?
"fast" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #243 in our German list, against #40,524 for "Falte". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Falte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fast" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,498,892 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Falte" and "fast" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Falte vs Felge". 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 #1,498,892 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