habtvshardConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#701
“habt” frequency rank
#8,386
“hard” frequency rank
9087
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature habt hard
Definition 2. Person Plural Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs haben hart, fest

Where the eye mixes habt and hard

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. habt and hard follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
habt
4 ch
hard

Visual trap between habt and hard

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: habt is [haːpt] while hard is [hɑː(ɹ)d]. 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 9087, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

habt is recorded at frequency rank #701, classified as averb, pronounced [haːpt]. hard is at rank #8,386, tagged as anadj, pronounced [hɑː(ɹ)d].

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 9087, this pair ranks #1,981,518 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of habt vs hard

Shared letters: ah. Private to "habt": bt. Private to "hard": dr.

"habt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hard" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • habtahbt · habbt · habtt · hatb · hbat · hhabt
  • hardahrd · hadr · hardd · harrd · hhard · hrad

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "habt" and "hard" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "habt" is a verb and "hard" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "habt" or "hard" show up more?
"habt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #701 in our German list, against #8,386 for "hard". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "habt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hard" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,981,518 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "habt" and "hard" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hard vs haze". 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 #1,981,518 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