machvsMalsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#687
“mach” frequency rank
#48,319
“Mals” frequency rank
49006
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mach Mals
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ des Verbs machen eine Gemeinde in Südtirol

Letter map: mach vs Mals

Shared letters muted; letters that set mach and Mals apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. mach and Mals follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
mach
4 ch
Mals

Part-of-speech tell for mach / Mals

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mach is averb and Malsaname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49006, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mach is recorded at frequency rank #687, classified as averb, pronounced [max]. Mals is at rank #48,319, tagged as aname, pronounced […].

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 49006, this pair ranks #1,227,538 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mach vs Mals

Shared letters: am. Private to "mach": ch. Private to "Mals": ls.

"mach" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "Mals" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mach ← amch · macch · machh · mahc · mcah · mmach
  • Mals ← amls · malls · malss · masl · mlas · mmals

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mach" and "Mals" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mach" is a verb and "Mals" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "mach" or "Mals" show up more?
"mach" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #687 in our German list, against #48,319 for "Mals". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "mach" and "Mals". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mach" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mals" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,227,538 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mach" and "Mals" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mals 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 #1,227,538 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