foliovsfotoConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#49,679
“folio” frequency rank
#812
“foto” frequency rank
50491
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature folio foto
Definition auf dem Blatt (stehend, verzeichnet) Licht

Letter map: folio vs foto

Shared letters muted; letters that set folio and foto apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. folio runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against foto's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
folio
4 ch
foto

Part-of-speech tell for folio / foto

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: folio is anadverb and fotoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50491, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

folio is recorded at frequency rank #49,679, classified as anadv, pronounced [ˈfoːli̯o]. 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 50491, this pair ranks #1,171,733 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of folio vs foto

Shared letters: fo. Private to "folio": il. Private to "foto": t.

"folio" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "foto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • folio ← ffolio · floio · foilo · follio · foloi · oflio
  • foto ← ffoto · fotto · ftoo · ofto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "folio" for "foto" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "folio" is an adverb and "foto" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "folio" or "foto" show up more?
"foto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #812 in our German list, against #49,679 for "folio". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "folio" vs "foto" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "folio" 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 #1,171,733 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "folio" and "foto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fol vs folio". 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 #1,171,733 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