Which to use
“sai” is a verb and “ship” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #47,708
- “sai” frequency rank
- #34,908
- “ship” frequency rank
- 82616
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sai | ship |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 2. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs sapere | Schiff, Wasserfahrzeug |
Where the eye mixes sai and ship
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. sai runs 3 letters (CVV) against ship's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between sai and ship
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sai is [ˈsai̯] while ship is [ʃɪp]. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82616, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sai is recorded at frequency rank #47,708, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈsai̯]. ship is at rank #34,908, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ʃɪp].
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 82616, this pair ranks #154,038 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sai vs ship
Shared letters: is. Private to "sai": a. Private to "ship": hp.
"sai" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "ship" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- ship ← hsip · shhip · shipp · shpi · sihp · sship
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sai" and "ship" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary German text, does "sai" or "ship" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "sai" and "ship" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "sai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ship" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #154,038 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sai" and "ship" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sai vs seg". 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 #154,038 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.