Which to use
“halten” is a verb and “harter” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #395
- “halten” frequency rank
- #7,928
- “harter” frequency rank
- 8323
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | halten | harter |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | etwas durch Kraftausübung in Ruhe belassen oder bringen | Nominativ Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs hart |
Where the eye mixes halten and harter
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: halten is [ˈhaltn̩] while harter is [ˈhaʁtɐ]. 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 8323, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
halten is recorded at frequency rank #395, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈhaltn̩]. harter is at rank #7,928, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈhaʁtɐ].
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 8323, this pair ranks #1,984,754 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of halten vs harter
Shared letters: aeht. Private to "halten": ln. Private to "harter": r.
"halten" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "harter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC