famousvsfotoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: famous is a adjective, foto is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#41,158
“famous” frequency rank
#812
“foto” frequency rank
41970
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature famous foto
Definition bekannt, berühmt Licht

Letter map: famous vs foto

Shared letters muted; letters that set famous and foto apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

6 ch
famous
4 ch
foto

Grammar separator: famous vs foto

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: famous is anadjective and fotoanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41970, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

famous is recorded at frequency rank #41,158, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. foto is at rank #812, tagged as anoun, 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 41970, this pair ranks #1,463,541 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of famous vs foto

Shared letters: fo. Private to "famous": amsu. Private to "foto": t.

"famous" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "foto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • famousafmous · fammous · famosu · famouss · famuos · faomus · ffamous · fmaous
  • fotoffoto · fotto · ftoo · ofto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "famous" for "foto" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "famous" is an adjective and "foto" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "famous" vs "foto" - which ranks higher?
"foto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #812 in our German list, against #41,158 for "famous". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "famous" and "foto". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "famous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,463,541 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "famous" and "foto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "famous 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 #1,463,541 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