malavsMalsTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#45,440
“mala” frequency rank
#48,319
“Mals” frequency rank
93759
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mala Mals
Definition verkehrt, umgekehrt, gegenteilig, entgegengesetzt eine Gemeinde in Südtirol

Letter map: mala vs Mals

Shared letters muted; letters that set mala and Mals apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mala (CVCV) and Mals (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
mala
4 ch
Mals

Part-of-speech tell for mala / Mals

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mala is anadjective and Malsaname. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “mala” becomes s in “Mals”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 93759, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mala is recorded at frequency rank #45,440, classified as anadj. 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 93759, this pair ranks #20,719 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mala vs Mals

Shared letters: alm. Private to "mala": -. Private to "Mals": s.

"mala" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Mals" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mala ← maal · malla · mlaa · mmala
  • Mals ← amls · malls · malss · masl · mlas · mmals

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mala" for "Mals" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mala" is an adjective and "Mals" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mala" or "Mals"?
"mala" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #45,440 in our German list, against #48,319 for "Mals". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "mala" vs "Mals" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mala" 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 #20,719 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mala" 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 #20,719 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