hau vs He, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“hau” is a verb and “He” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,064
“hau” frequency rank: #3,534
“He” frequency rank: 10598
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	hau	He
Definition	2. Person Singular Präsens Imperativ Aktiv des Verbs hauen	Helium

Letter map: hau vs He

Shared letters muted; letters that set hau and He apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

hau

2 ch

Role in the sentence - hau and He

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hau is averb and Heanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10598, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hau is recorded at frequency rank #7,064, classified as averb, pronounced [haʊ̯]. He is at rank #3,534, tagged as anabbrev.

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 10598, this pair ranks #1,974,350 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hau vs He

Shared letters: h. Private to "hau": au. Private to "He": e.

"hau" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "He" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hau" for "He" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hau" is a verb and "He" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "hau" or "He"?

"He" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,534 in our German list, against #7,064 for "hau". 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 "hau" and "He".

Full dictionary entry for "hau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "He" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,974,350 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"hau" and "He" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hau vs haze". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,974,350 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.