ladetvsLakenWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ladet is a verb, Laken is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ladet” is a verb and “Laken” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,229
“ladet” frequency rank
#35,291
“Laken” frequency rank
69520
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ladet Laken
Definition 2. Person Plural Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs laden großes Tuch, mit dem eine Matratze abgedeckt wird

Where the eye mixes ladet and Laken

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. ladet and Laken follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
ladet
5 ch
Laken

Why the eye confuses ladet with Laken

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ladet is [ˈlaːdət] while Laken is [ˈlaːkn̩]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69520, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ladet is recorded at frequency rank #34,229, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈlaːdət]. Laken is at rank #35,291, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈlaːkn̩].

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 69520, this pair ranks #474,084 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ladet vs Laken

Shared letters: ael. Private to "ladet": dt. Private to "Laken": kn.

"ladet" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Laken" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ladet ← aldet · laddet · ladett · ladte · laedt · ldaet · lladet
  • Laken ← alken · laekn · lakenn · lakken · lakne · lkaen · llaken

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ladet" and "Laken" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ladet" is a verb and "Laken" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ladet" or "Laken"?
"ladet" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,229 in our German list, against #35,291 for "Laken". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ladet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Laken" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #474,084 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ladet" and "Laken" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Laken vs Lasern". 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 #474,084 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