le vs loh, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“le” is a determiner and “loh” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,852
“le” frequency rank: #44,776
“loh” frequency rank: 46628
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	le	loh
Definition	der, die, das	2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs lohen

Where the eye mixes le and loh

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch

3 ch

loh

Visual trap between le and loh

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: le is [lə] while loh is [loː]. 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 (determiner vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46628, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

le is recorded at frequency rank #1,852, classified as adet, pronounced [lə]. loh is at rank #44,776, tagged as averb, pronounced [loː].

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 46628, this pair ranks #1,312,590 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of le vs loh

Shared letters: l. Private to "le": e. Private to "loh": ho.

"le" · 2 letters · shape CV · "loh" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "le" and "loh" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

In ordinary German text, does "le" or "loh" show up more?

"le" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,852 in our German list, against #44,776 for "loh". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "le" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "loh" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,312,590 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"le" and "loh" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "loh vs Lori". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,312,590 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.