friendsvsNetteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: friends is a noun, Nette is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“friends” is a noun and “Nette” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,235
“friends” frequency rank
#3,060
“Nette” frequency rank
14295
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature friends Nette
Definition Plural des Substantivs friend linker Nebenfluss des Rheins, der bei Weißenthurm in den Mittelrhein mündet

Letter map: friends vs Nette

Shared letters muted; letters that set friends and Nette apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

7 ch
friends
5 ch
Nette

Role in the sentence - friends and Nette

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: friends is anoun and Netteaname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14295, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

friends is recorded at frequency rank #11,235, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. Nette is at rank #3,060, tagged as aname, 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 14295, this pair ranks #1,952,215 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of friends vs Nette

Shared letters: en. Private to "friends": dfirs. Private to "Nette": t.

"friends" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC  ·  "Nette" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • friendsffriends · firends · freinds · friedns · friendds · friendss · friennds · friensd
  • Netteentte · nete · netet · nnette · ntete

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "friends" for "Nette" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "friends" is a noun and "Nette" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "friends" or "Nette"?
"Nette" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,060 in our German list, against #11,235 for "friends". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "friends" vs "Nette" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "friends" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Nette" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,952,215 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "friends" and "Nette" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "friends 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 #1,952,215 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