LemkevsleseTell them apart

Quick tell: Lemke is a name, lese is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Lemke” is a name and “lese” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,888
“Lemke” frequency rank
#2,907
“lese” frequency rank
38795
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Lemke lese
Definition deutschsprachiger Nachname, Familienname 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs lesen

Letter map: Lemke vs lese

Shared letters muted; letters that set Lemke and lese apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
Lemke
4 ch
lese

Part-of-speech tell for Lemke / lese

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Lemke is aname and leseaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38795, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Lemke is recorded at frequency rank #35,888, classified as aname, pronounced […]. lese is at rank #2,907, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈleːzə].

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 38795, this pair ranks #1,554,410 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Lemke vs lese

Shared letters: el. Private to "Lemke": km. Private to "lese": s.

"Lemke" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "lese" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Lemkeelmke · lekme · lemek · lemkke · lemmke · llemke · lmeke
  • leseelse · lesse · llese · lsee

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Lemke" and "lese" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Lemke" is a name and "lese" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Lemke" vs "lese" - which ranks higher?
"lese" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,907 in our German list, against #35,888 for "Lemke". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Lemke" and "lese".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Lemke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lese" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,554,410 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Lemke" and "lese" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lemke vs puzzles". 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 #1,554,410 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