rolevsrotenConfusable pair

Quick tell: role is a noun, roten is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“role” is a noun and “roten” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,998
“role” frequency rank
#1,677
“roten” frequency rank
37675
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature role roten
Definition die Rolle Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Adjektivs rot

Letter map: role vs roten

Shared letters muted; letters that set role and roten apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. role runs 4 letters (CVCV) against roten's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
role
5 ch
roten

Part-of-speech tell for role / roten

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: role is anoun and rotenanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37675, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

role is recorded at frequency rank #35,998, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. roten is at rank #1,677, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈʁoːtn̩].

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 37675, this pair ranks #1,583,989 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of role vs roten

Shared letters: eor. Private to "role": l. Private to "roten": nt.

"role" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "roten" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • role ← orle · rloe · roel · rrole
  • roten ← roetn · rotenn · rotne · rroten · rtoen

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "role" and "roten" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "role" is a noun and "roten" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "role" or "roten" show up more?
"roten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,677 in our German list, against #35,998 for "role". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "role" and "roten".

  • Full dictionary entry for "role" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "roten" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,583,989 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "role" and "roten" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs role". 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 #1,583,989 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