geravsgerneTell them apart

Quick tell: gera is a verb, gerne is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gera” is a verb and “gerne” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,085
“gera” frequency rank
#300
“gerne” frequency rank
12385
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gera gerne
Definition tun freiwillig, mit Vergnügen

Letter map: gera vs gerne

Shared letters muted; letters that set gera and gerne apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
gera
5 ch
gerne

Grammar separator: gera vs gerne

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gera is averb and gerneanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12385, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gera is recorded at frequency rank #12,085, classified as averb, pronounced […]. gerne is at rank #300, tagged as anadv, pronounced [ˈɡɛʁnə].

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 12385, this pair ranks #1,964,484 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of gera vs gerne

Shared letters: egr. Private to "gera": a. Private to "gerne": n.

"gera" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "gerne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • geraegra · gerra · ggera · grea
  • gerneegrne · geren · gernne · gerrne · ggerne · grene

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gera" and "gerne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gera" is a verb and "gerne" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "gera" or "gerne" show up more?
"gerne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #300 in our German list, against #12,085 for "gera". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "gera" and "gerne". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gera" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gerne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,964,484 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gera" and "gerne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gera 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 #1,964,484 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