sparksvsspätesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#44,926
“sparks” frequency rank
#42,144
“spätes” frequency rank
87070
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sparks spätes
Definition Plural des Substantivs spark Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs spät

Letter map: sparks vs spätes

Shared letters muted; letters that set sparks and spätes apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. sparks (CCVCCC) and spätes (CCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
sparks
6 ch
spätes

Part-of-speech tell for sparks / spätes

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sparks is anoun and spätesanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 87070, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sparks is recorded at frequency rank #44,926, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. spätes is at rank #42,144, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈʃpɛːtəs].

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 87070, this pair ranks #85,147 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sparks vs spätes

Shared letters: ps. Private to "sparks": akr. Private to "spätes": etä.

"sparks" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC  ·  "spätes" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sparks ← psarks · saprks · spakrs · sparkks · sparkss · sparrks · sparsk · spparks

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sparks" and "spätes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sparks" is a noun and "spätes" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "sparks" vs "spätes" - which ranks higher?
"spätes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42,144 in our German list, against #44,926 for "sparks". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "sparks" vs "spätes" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sparks" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "spätes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,147 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sparks" and "spätes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs sparks". 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 #85,147 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