kam vs ku, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“kam” is a verb and “ku” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#274
“kam” frequency rank: #17,061
“ku” frequency rank: 17335
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	kam	ku
Definition	1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs kommen	wo

Letter map: kam vs ku

Shared letters muted; letters that set kam and ku apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

kam

2 ch

Role in the sentence - kam and ku

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: kam is averb and kuapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17335, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kam is recorded at frequency rank #274, classified as averb, pronounced [kaːm]. ku is at rank #17,061, tagged as apron, 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 17335, this pair ranks #1,928,287 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of kam vs ku

Shared letters: k. Private to "kam": am. Private to "ku": u.

"kam" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "ku" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "kam" and "ku" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "kam" is a verb and "ku" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "kam" or "ku"?

"kam" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #274 in our German list, against #17,061 for "ku". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "kam" vs "ku" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "kam" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ku" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,928,287 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"kam" and "ku" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ku vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,928,287 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.