karavsKernConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#21,657
“kara” frequency rank
#2,602
“Kern” frequency rank
24259
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kara Kern
Definition lieb, wert, teuer, wertvoll, hold, herzig in der Mitte befindlicher Hauptbestandteil eines Ganzen; Basis, Zentrum

Letter map: kara vs Kern

Shared letters muted; letters that set kara and Kern apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
kara
4 ch
Kern

Role in the sentence - kara and Kern

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: kara is anadjective and Kernanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24259, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kara is recorded at frequency rank #21,657, classified as anadj. Kern is at rank #2,602, tagged as anoun, pronounced [kɛʁn].

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 24259, this pair ranks #1,850,182 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of kara vs Kern

Shared letters: kr. Private to "kara": a. Private to "Kern": en.

"kara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Kern" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • karaakra · kaar · karra · kkara · kraa
  • Kernekrn · kenr · kernn · kerrn · kkern · kren

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "kara" and "Kern" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "kara" is an adjective and "Kern" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "kara" or "Kern" show up more?
"Kern" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,602 in our German list, against #21,657 for "kara". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "kara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Kern" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,850,182 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "kara" and "Kern" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "kara vs karge". 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 #1,850,182 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