manavsMantraWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mana is a pronoun, Mantra is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mana” is a pronoun and “Mantra” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,081
“mana” frequency rank
#33,180
“Mantra” frequency rank
73261
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mana Mantra
Definition meine in östlichen Religionen und beim Yoga verwendete, wiederholt gesprochene, spirituelle Formel, der positive Wirkungskräfte zugesprochen werden

Where the eye mixes mana and Mantra

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. mana runs 4 letters (CVCV) against Mantra's 6 (CVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
mana
6 ch
Mantra

Visual trap between mana and Mantra

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mana is [ˈmana] while Mantra is [ˈmantʁa]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73261, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mana is recorded at frequency rank #40,081, classified as apron, pronounced [ˈmana]. Mantra is at rank #33,180, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmantʁa].

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 73261, this pair ranks #365,231 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mana vs Mantra

Shared letters: amn. Private to "mana": -. Private to "Mantra": rt.

"mana" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Mantra" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manaamna · maan · manna · mmana · mnaa
  • Mantraamntra · manntra · manrta · mantar · mantrra · manttra · matnra · mmantra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mana" and "Mantra" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mana" is a pronoun and "Mantra" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "mana" or "Mantra" show up more?
"Mantra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,180 in our German list, against #40,081 for "mana". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mana" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mantra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #365,231 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mana" and "Mantra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mana vs mora". 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 #365,231 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