foodvsfotoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“food” and “foto” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#7,045
“food” frequency rank
#812
“foto” frequency rank
7857
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature food foto
Definition jede Substanz die von Menschen, Pflanzen oder Tieren aufgenommen wird, um das Überleben und das Wachstum zu ermöglichen, Nahrung Licht

Letter map: food vs foto

Shared letters muted; letters that set food and foto apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. food (CVVC) and foto (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
food
4 ch
foto

Corpus notes: food and foto

food and foto are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7857, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

food is recorded at frequency rank #7,045, classified as anoun, 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 7857, this pair ranks #1,986,610 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of food vs foto

Shared letters: fo. Private to "food": d. Private to "foto": t.

"food" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "foto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • foodffood · fod · fodo · foodd · ofod
  • fotoffoto · fotto · ftoo · ofto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "food" for "foto" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "food" vs "foto" - which ranks higher?
"foto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #812 in our German list, against #7,045 for "food". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "food" and "foto".

  • Full dictionary entry for "food" 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 #1,986,610 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "food" and "foto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "food 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 #1,986,610 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