SäftevssagteConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#33,848
“Säfte” frequency rank
#311
“sagte” frequency rank
34159
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Säfte sagte
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Saft 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs sagen

Where the eye mixes Säfte and sagte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Säfte and sagte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Säfte
5 ch
sagte

Look-alike desk: Säfte vs sagte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Säfte is [ˈzɛftə] while sagte is [ˈzaːktə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34159, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Säfte is recorded at frequency rank #33,848, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈzɛftə]. sagte is at rank #311, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈzaːktə].

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 34159, this pair ranks #1,669,766 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Säfte vs sagte

Shared letters: est. Private to "Säfte": fä. Private to "sagte": ag.

"Säfte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "sagte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sagte ← asgte · saget · saggte · sagtte · satge · sgate · ssagte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Säfte" and "sagte" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Säfte" is a noun and "sagte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Säfte" or "sagte" show up more?
"sagte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #311 in our German list, against #33,848 for "Säfte". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Säfte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sagte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,669,766 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Säfte" and "sagte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Säfte vs Sake". 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 #1,669,766 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