le vs luz, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#1,852
“le” frequency rank: #35,899
“luz” frequency rank: 37751
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	le	luz
Definition	der, die, das	etwas, das Dinge sichtbar macht oder Beleuchtung produziert

Where the eye mixes le and luz

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

2 ch

3 ch

luz

Visual trap between le and luz

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: le is [lə] while luz is [luʃ]. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37751, 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]. luz is at rank #35,899, tagged as anoun, pronounced [luʃ].

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 37751, this pair ranks #1,581,964 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of le vs luz

Shared letters: l. Private to "le": e. Private to "luz": uz.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "le" for "luz" ever safe?

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

Frequency check: "le" vs "luz" - which ranks higher?

"le" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,852 in our German list, against #35,899 for "luz". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "le" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "luz" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,581,964 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"le" and "luz" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lai vs luz". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,581,964 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.