karavskarlaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: kara is a adjective, karla is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#21,657
“kara” frequency rank
#33,140
“karla” frequency rank
54797
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kara karla
Definition lieb, wert, teuer, wertvoll, hold, herzig Akkusativ Plural des Substantivs karl

Letter map: kara vs karla

Shared letters muted; letters that set kara and karla apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
kara
5 ch
karla

Grammar separator: kara vs karla

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: kara is anadjective and karlaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54797, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kara is recorded at frequency rank #21,657, classified as anadj. karla is at rank #33,140, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkartla].

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 54797, this pair ranks #1,004,673 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of kara vs karla

Shared letters: akr. Private to "kara": -. Private to "karla": l.

"kara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "karla" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • karaakra · kaar · karra · kkara · kraa
  • karlaakrla · kalra · karal · karlla · karrla · kkarla · krala

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "kara" and "karla" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "kara" is an adjective and "karla" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "kara" or "karla"?
"kara" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,657 in our German list, against #33,140 for "karla". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "kara" and "karla". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "kara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "karla" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,004,673 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "kara" and "karla" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "karge vs karla". 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 #1,004,673 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