gottavsshowsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“gotta” and “shows” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,814
“gotta” frequency rank
#8,130
“shows” frequency rank
43944
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gotta shows
Definition umgangssp. benötigen, müssen 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs show

Letter map: gotta vs shows

Shared letters muted; letters that set gotta and shows apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. gotta (CVCCV) and shows (CCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
gotta
5 ch
shows

Spelling & dictionary notes on gotta vs shows

gotta and shows are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43944, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gotta is recorded at frequency rank #35,814, classified as averb, pronounced […]. shows is at rank #8,130, tagged as averb, 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 43944, this pair ranks #1,402,063 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gotta vs shows

Shared letters: o. Private to "gotta": agt. Private to "shows": hsw.

"gotta" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "shows" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gottaggotta · gota · gotat · gtota · ogtta
  • showshsows · shhows · shosw · showss · showws · shwos · sohws · sshows

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gotta" and "shows" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "gotta" or "shows" show up more?
"shows" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,130 in our German list, against #35,814 for "gotta". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "gotta" and "shows". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gotta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shows" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,402,063 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gotta" and "shows" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gotta 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 #1,402,063 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