neu vs non, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“neu” is an adjective and “non” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#385
“neu” frequency rank: #5,204
“non” frequency rank: 5589
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	neu	non
Definition	vor kurzer Zeit gemacht oder geschehen	nicht

Letter map: neu vs non

Shared letters muted; letters that set neu and non apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

neu

3 ch

non

Role in the sentence - neu and non

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: neu is anadjective and nonanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5589, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

neu is recorded at frequency rank #385, classified as anadj, pronounced [nɔɪ̯]. non is at rank #5,204, tagged as anadv, 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 5589, this pair ranks #1,994,298 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of neu vs non

Shared letters: n. Private to "neu": eu. Private to "non": o.

"neu" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "non" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "neu" and "non" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "neu" is an adjective and "non" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "neu" vs "non" - which ranks higher?

"neu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #385 in our German list, against #5,204 for "non". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "neu" and "non".

Full dictionary entry for "neu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "non" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,994,298 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"neu" and "non" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "non vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,994,298 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.