fielevsvieleTell them apart

Quick tell: fiele is a verb, viele is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fiele” is a verb and “viele” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,535
“fiele” frequency rank
#143
“viele” frequency rank
40678
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fiele viele
Definition 1. Person Singular Konjunktiv Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs fallen Nominativ Plural Positiv der starken Flexion des Adjektivs viel

Same sound, different letters: fiele vs viele

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. fiele and viele follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
fiele
5 ch
viele

Same sound, different spelling - fiele / viele

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: fiele and viele carry the same recorded pronunciation, [ˈfiːlə]. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - f in “fiele” becomes v in “viele”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40678, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fiele is recorded at frequency rank #40,535, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈfiːlə]. viele is at rank #143, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈfiːlə].

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 40678, this pair ranks #1,501,554 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fiele vs viele

Shared letters: eil. Private to "fiele": f. Private to "viele": v.

"fiele" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "viele" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fiele ← feile · ffiele · fieel · fielle · filee · ifele
  • viele ← ivele · veile · vieel · vielle · vilee · vviele

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fiele" and "viele" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fiele" is a verb and "viele" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "fiele" or "viele" show up more?
"viele" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #143 in our German list, against #40,535 for "fiele". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fiele" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "viele" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,501,554 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fiele" and "viele" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fiele vs friere". 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 #1,501,554 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