familyvslettersWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: family is a noun, letters is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“family” is a noun and “letters” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,759
“family” frequency rank
#41,320
“letters” frequency rank
49079
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature family letters
Definition Familie 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs letter

Letter map: family vs letters

Shared letters muted; letters that set family and letters apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. family runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against letters's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
family
7 ch
letters

Grammar separator: family vs letters

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: family is anoun and lettersaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49079, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

family is recorded at frequency rank #7,759, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. letters is at rank #41,320, tagged as averb, 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 49079, this pair ranks #1,224,824 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of family vs letters

Shared letters: l. Private to "family": afimy. Private to "letters": erst.

"family" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "letters" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • familyafmily · faimly · familly · familyy · famiyl · famliy · fammily · ffamily
  • letterseltters · leters · letetrs · letterrs · letterss · lettesr · lettres · lletters

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "family" and "letters" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "family" is a noun and "letters" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "family" or "letters" show up more?
"family" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,759 in our German list, against #41,320 for "letters". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "family" vs "letters" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "family" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "letters" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,224,824 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "family" and "letters" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "letters 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 #1,224,824 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