Which to use
“halten” is a verb and “hartes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #395
- “halten” frequency rank
- #12,731
- “hartes” frequency rank
- 13126
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | halten | hartes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | etwas durch Kraftausübung in Ruhe belassen oder bringen | Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs hart |
Where the eye mixes halten and hartes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. halten and hartes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: halten vs hartes
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: halten is [ˈhaltn̩] while hartes is [ˈhaʁtəs]. 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 13126, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
halten is recorded at frequency rank #395, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈhaltn̩]. hartes is at rank #12,731, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈhaʁtəs].
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 13126, this pair ranks #1,959,944 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of halten vs hartes
Shared letters: aeht. Private to "halten": ln. Private to "hartes": rs.
"halten" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "hartes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "halten" and "hartes" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "halten" or "hartes"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "halten" and "hartes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "halten" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hartes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,959,944 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "halten" and "hartes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "harren vs hartes". 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 #1,959,944 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.