gehörtvsgehörtenWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#317
“gehört” frequency rank
#4,989
“gehörten” frequency rank
5306
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gehört gehörten
Definition Partizip Perfekt des Verbs hören Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs gehört

Where the eye mixes gehört and gehörten

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

6 ch
gehört
8 ch
gehörten

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gehört is [ɡəˈhøːɐ̯t] while gehörten is [ɡəˈhøːɐ̯tn̩]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “gehört” sits inside “gehörten”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5306, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gehört is recorded at frequency rank #317, classified as averb, pronounced [ɡəˈhøːɐ̯t]. gehörten is at rank #4,989, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ɡəˈhøːɐ̯tn̩].

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 5306, this pair ranks #1,995,182 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of gehört vs gehörten

Shared letters: eghrtö. Private to "gehört": -. Private to "gehörten": n.

"gehört" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "gehörten" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gehört" and "gehörten" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gehört" is a verb and "gehörten" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "gehört" or "gehörten"?
"gehört" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #317 in our German list, against #4,989 for "gehörten". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list