hannvshartWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: hann is a pronoun, hart is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hann” is a pronoun and “hart” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,445
“hann” frequency rank
#1,111
“hart” frequency rank
27556
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hann hart
Definition Personalpronomen der 3. Person Maskulinum Singular im Nominativ: er nur mit großem Kraftaufwand verformbar

Where the eye mixes hann and hart

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hann
4 ch
hart

Visual trap between hann and hart

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hann is [hanː] while hart is [haʁt]. 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 (pronoun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27556, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hann is recorded at frequency rank #26,445, classified as apron, pronounced [hanː]. hart is at rank #1,111, tagged as anadj, pronounced [haʁt].

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 27556, this pair ranks #1,799,822 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hann vs hart

Shared letters: ah. Private to "hann": n. Private to "hart": rt.

"hann" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hannahnn · han · hhann · hnan
  • hartahrt · harrt · hartt · hatr · hhart · hrat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hann" for "hart" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hann" is a pronoun and "hart" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "hann" or "hart" show up more?
"hart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,111 in our German list, against #26,445 for "hann". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hann" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hart" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,799,822 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hann" and "hart" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hähne vs hann". 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 #1,799,822 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