InnernvsinterneWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Innern is a noun, interne is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Innern” is a noun and “interne” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,116
“Innern” frequency rank
#6,310
“interne” frequency rank
16426
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Innern interne
Definition Genitiv Singular der starken Flexion des Substantivs Inneres Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs intern

Where the eye mixes Innern and interne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
Innern
7 ch
interne

Look-alike desk: Innern vs interne

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Innern is [ˈɪnɐn] while interne is [ɪnˈtɛʁnə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16426, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Innern is recorded at frequency rank #10,116, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈɪnɐn]. interne is at rank #6,310, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ɪnˈtɛʁnə].

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 16426, this pair ranks #1,935,974 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Innern vs interne

Shared letters: einr. Private to "Innern": -. Private to "interne": t.

"Innern" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC  ·  "interne" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Innerninenrn · inern · innenr · innernn · innerrn · innren · ninern
  • interneinetrne · innterne · intenre · interen · internne · interrne · intrene · intterne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Innern" and "interne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Innern" is a noun and "interne" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Innern" or "interne" show up more?
"interne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,310 in our German list, against #10,116 for "Innern". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Innern" and "interne" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Innern" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "interne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,935,974 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Innern" and "interne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Innern vs Interna". 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 #1,935,974 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