gehenvsgutenWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: gehen is a verb, guten is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gehen” is a verb and “guten” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#209
“gehen” frequency rank
#330
“guten” frequency rank
539
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gehen guten
Definition sich schreitend, schrittweise fortbewegen Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Adjektivs gut

Where the eye mixes gehen and guten

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

5 ch
gehen
5 ch
guten

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gehen is [ˈɡeːən] while guten is [ˈɡuːtn̩]. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 539, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gehen is recorded at frequency rank #209, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈɡeːən]. guten is at rank #330, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈɡuːtn̩].

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 539, this pair ranks #2,005,713 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of gehen vs guten

Shared letters: egn. Private to "gehen": h. Private to "guten": tu.

"gehen" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "guten" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • geheneghen · geehn · gehenn · gehhen · gehne · ggehen · gheen
  • gutengguten · gtuen · guetn · gutenn · gutne · gutten · ugten

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gehen" and "guten" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gehen" is a verb and "guten" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "gehen" or "guten"?
"gehen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #209 in our German list, against #330 for "guten". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list