ForenvsfreiTell them apart

Quick tell: Foren is a noun, frei is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#10,085
“Foren” frequency rank
#544
“frei” frequency rank
10629
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Foren frei
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Forum unabhängig, nicht gefangen, nicht versklavt

Where the eye mixes Foren and frei

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Foren
4 ch
frei

Look-alike desk: Foren vs frei

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Foren is [ˈfoːʁən] while frei is [fʁaɪ̯]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10629, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Foren is recorded at frequency rank #10,085, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈfoːʁən]. frei is at rank #544, tagged as anadj, pronounced [fʁaɪ̯].

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 10629, this pair ranks #1,974,173 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Foren vs frei

Shared letters: efr. Private to "Foren": no. Private to "frei": i.

"Foren" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "frei" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Forenfforen · foern · forenn · forne · forren · froen · ofren
  • freiferi · ffrei · frie · frrei · rfei

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Foren" for "frei" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Foren" is a noun and "frei" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Foren" vs "frei" - which ranks higher?
"frei" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #544 in our German list, against #10,085 for "Foren". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Foren" and "frei" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Foren" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frei" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,974,173 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Foren" and "frei" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Foren vs forms". 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 #1,974,173 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