sagtevsSahneWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#311
“sagte” frequency rank
#9,083
“Sahne” frequency rank
9394
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sagte Sahne
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs sagen fettreicher Teil der Milch, der beim Stehenlassen eine obere Phase bildet

Where the eye mixes sagte and Sahne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
sagte
5 ch
Sahne

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sagte is [ˈzaːktə] while Sahne is [ˈzaːnə]. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9394, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sagte is recorded at frequency rank #311, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈzaːktə]. Sahne is at rank #9,083, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈzaːnə].

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 9394, this pair ranks #1,980,156 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sagte vs Sahne

Shared letters: aes. Private to "sagte": gt. Private to "Sahne": hn.

"sagte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Sahne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sagteasgte · saget · saggte · sagtte · satge · sgate · ssagte
  • Sahneashne · sahhne · sahnne · sanhe · shane · ssahne

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sagte" and "Sahne" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sagte" is a verb and "Sahne" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sagte" or "Sahne"?
"sagte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #311 in our German list, against #9,083 for "Sahne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list