obenvsopenWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: oben is a adverb, open is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#459
“oben” frequency rank
#2,607
“open” frequency rank
3066
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature oben open
Definition an hoch gelegener Stelle/Ort etwas ist nicht geschlossen

Letter map: oben vs open

Shared letters muted; letters that set oben and open apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
oben
4 ch
open

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: oben is anadverb and openanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - b in “oben” becomes p in “open”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3066, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

oben is recorded at frequency rank #459, classified as anadv, pronounced [ˈoːbn̩]. open is at rank #2,607, tagged as anadj, 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 3066, this pair ranks #2,001,016 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of oben vs open

Shared letters: eno. Private to "oben": b. Private to "open": p.

"oben" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "open" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • obenboen · obben · obenn · obne · oebn
  • openoepn · openn · opne · oppen · poen

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "oben" and "open" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "oben" is an adverb and "open" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "oben" or "open"?
"oben" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #459 in our German list, against #2,607 for "open". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list