greenvsgutenWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#5,267
“green” frequency rank
#330
“guten” frequency rank
5597
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature green guten
Definition Grün als Farbe habend Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Adjektivs gut

Where the eye mixes green and guten

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

5 ch
green
5 ch
guten

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. green ([ɡɹiːn]) and guten ([ˈɡuːtn̩]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5597, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

green is recorded at frequency rank #5,267, classified as anadj, pronounced [ɡɹiːn]. 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 5597, this pair ranks #1,994,275 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of green vs guten

Shared letters: egn. Private to "green": r. Private to "guten": tu.

"green" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "guten" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • greenggreen · greenn · grreen
  • gutengguten · gtuen · guetn · gutenn · gutne · gutten · ugten

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "green" and "guten" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([ɡɹiːn] versus [ˈɡuːtn̩]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "green" or "guten"?
"guten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #330 in our German list, against #5,267 for "green". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "green" and "guten". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "green" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guten" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,994,275 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "green" and "guten" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "greco vs green". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list