hatsvshe'sWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: hats is a noun, he's is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hats” is a noun and “he's” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,734
“hats” frequency rank
#29,620
“he's” frequency rank
39354
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hats he's
Definition Plural des Substantivs hat he is: er ist

Letter map: hats vs he's

Shared letters muted; letters that set hats and he's apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
hats
4 ch
he's

Role in the sentence - hats and he's

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hats is anoun and he'sanabbrev. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39354, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hats is recorded at frequency rank #9,734, classified as anoun, pronounced [hæts]. he's is at rank #29,620, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced […].

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 39354, this pair ranks #1,539,063 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hats vs he's

Shared letters: hs. Private to "hats": at. Private to "he's": e.

"hats" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "he's" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hatsahts · hatss · hatts · hhats · htas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hats" and "he's" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hats" is a noun and "he's" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "hats" or "he's" show up more?
"hats" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,734 in our German list, against #29,620 for "he's". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "hats" and "he's".

  • Full dictionary entry for "hats" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "he's" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,539,063 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hats" and "he's" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "he's vs puzzles". 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 #1,539,063 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