PersonalvsPersonalieWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“Personal” and “Personalie” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,462
“Personal” frequency rank
#45,505
“Personalie” frequency rank
47967
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Personal Personalie
Definition Belegschaft eines Geschäftes, Unternehmens oder einer Firma amtliche Angaben zu spezifischen Eigenschaften einer Person

Where the eye mixes Personal and Personalie

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. Personal runs 8 letters (CVCCVCVC) against Personalie's 10 (CVCCVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
Personal
10 ch
Personalie

Look-alike desk: Personal vs Personalie

A purely visual mix-up. Personal ([pɛʁzoˈnaːl]) and Personalie ([pɛʁzoˈnaːli̯ə]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “Personal” sits inside “Personalie”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47967, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Personal is recorded at frequency rank #2,462, classified as anoun, pronounced [pɛʁzoˈnaːl]. Personalie is at rank #45,505, tagged as anoun, pronounced [pɛʁzoˈnaːli̯ə].

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 47967, this pair ranks #1,265,579 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Personal vs Personalie

Shared letters: aelnoprs. Private to "Personal": -. Private to "Personalie": i.

"Personal" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "Personalie" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Personal ← eprsonal · perosnal · perrsonal · persnoal · persoanl · personall · personla · personnal
  • Personalie ← eprsonalie · perosnalie · perrsonalie · persnoalie · persoanlie · personaile · personalei · personallie

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Personal" and "Personalie" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([pɛʁzoˈnaːl] versus [pɛʁzoˈnaːli̯ə]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "Personal" or "Personalie" show up more?
"Personal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,462 in our German list, against #45,505 for "Personalie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Personal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Personalie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,265,579 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Personal" and "Personalie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Personaler vs Personalie". 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 #1,265,579 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