fromvsfrühWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: from is a preposition, früh is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“from” is a preposition and “früh” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,249
“from” frequency rank
#1,056
“früh” frequency rank
4305
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature from früh
Definition aus, von (jeweils in Bezug auf Ort oder Richtung) zeitlich am Anfang liegend, zum Beginn

Where the eye mixes from and früh

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
from
4 ch
früh

Look-alike desk: from vs früh

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: from is [frəm] while früh is [fʁyː]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4305, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

from is recorded at frequency rank #3,249, classified as aprep, pronounced [frəm]. früh is at rank #1,056, tagged as anadj, pronounced [fʁyː].

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 4305, this pair ranks #1,998,059 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of from vs früh

Shared letters: fr. Private to "from": mo. Private to "früh": .

"from" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "früh" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fromffrom · frmo · frrom · rfom

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "from" and "früh" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "from" is a preposition and "früh" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "from" or "früh" show up more?
"früh" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,056 in our German list, against #3,249 for "from". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "from" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "früh" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,998,059 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "from" and "früh" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "firm vs from". 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 #1,998,059 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