notenvsnotesTell them apart

Quick tell: noten is a noun, notes is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“noten” is a noun and “notes” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,014
“noten” frequency rank
#21,718
“notes” frequency rank
26732
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature noten notes
Definition Nominativ Singular bestimmte Form des Substantivs not 2. Person Singular Präsens Konjunktiv des Verbs notar

Letter map: noten vs notes

Shared letters muted; letters that set noten and notes apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
noten
5 ch
notes

Role in the sentence - noten and notes

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: noten is anoun and notesaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - n in “noten” becomes s in “notes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26732, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

noten is recorded at frequency rank #5,014, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. notes is at rank #21,718, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈnɔ.tɪs].

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 26732, this pair ranks #1,813,328 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of noten vs notes

Shared letters: enot. Private to "noten": -. Private to "notes": s.

"noten" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "notes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • notennnoten · noetn · notenn · notne · notten · ntoen · onten
  • notesnnotes · noets · notess · notse · nottes · ntoes · ontes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "noten" for "notes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "noten" is a noun and "notes" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "noten" or "notes" show up more?
"noten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,014 in our German list, against #21,718 for "notes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "noten" vs "notes" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "noten" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "notes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,813,328 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "noten" and "notes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "node vs notes". 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 #1,813,328 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