sachtevsSucheWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: sachte is a adjective, Suche is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#41,435
“sachte” frequency rank
#693
“Suche” frequency rank
42128
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sachte Suche
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs sacht Prozess der Lokalisierung eines gewünschten Objektes; Bemühung mit dem Ziel, etwas Bestimmtes zu finden

Where the eye mixes sachte and Suche

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. sachte runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against Suche's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
sachte
5 ch
Suche

Look-alike desk: sachte vs Suche

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sachte is [ˈzaxtə] while Suche is [ˈzuːxə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42128, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sachte is recorded at frequency rank #41,435, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈzaxtə]. Suche is at rank #693, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈzuːxə].

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 42128, this pair ranks #1,458,761 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sachte vs Suche

Shared letters: cehs. Private to "sachte": at. Private to "Suche": u.

"sachte" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "Suche" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sachte ← aschte · sacchte · sachet · sachhte · sachtte · sacthe · sahcte · scahte
  • Suche ← scuhe · ssuche · sucche · suceh · suchhe · suhce · usche

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sachte" for "Suche" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sachte" is an adjective and "Suche" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "sachte" or "Suche" show up more?
"Suche" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #693 in our German list, against #41,435 for "sachte". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sachte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Suche" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,458,761 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sachte" and "Suche" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sacher vs sachte". 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 #1,458,761 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