meinemvsMineWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: meinem is a unknown, Mine is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“meinem” is an unknown and “Mine” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#332
“meinem” frequency rank
#10,699
“Mine” frequency rank
11031
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meinem Mine
Definition Dativ Singular Maskulinum des Possessivpronomens mein Bergwerk, Stollen

Where the eye mixes meinem and Mine

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

6 ch
meinem
4 ch
Mine

Why the eye confuses meinem with Mine

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: meinem is [ˈmaɪ̯nəm] while Mine is [ˈmiːnə]. 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 (unknown vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11031, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meinem is recorded at frequency rank #332, classified as anunknown, pronounced [ˈmaɪ̯nəm]. Mine is at rank #10,699, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmiːnə].

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 11031, this pair ranks #1,972,054 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meinem vs Mine

Shared letters: eimn. Private to "meinem": -. Private to "Mine": -.

"meinem" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "Mine" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meinememinem · meienm · meinemm · meinme · meinnem · meniem · mienem · mmeinem
  • Mineimne · minne · mmine · mnie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "meinem" for "Mine" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meinem" is an unknown and "Mine" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "meinem" or "Mine"?
"meinem" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #332 in our German list, against #10,699 for "Mine". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meinem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,972,054 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meinem" and "Mine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mine vs münz". 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 #1,972,054 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