taivsteConfusable pair

Quick tell: tai is a conjunction, te is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tai” is a conjunction and “te” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,530
“tai” frequency rank
#6,979
“te” frequency rank
29509
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tai te
Definition inklusives oder ihr, Sie (Höflichkeitsform)

Letter map: tai vs te

Shared letters muted; letters that set tai and te apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
tai
2 ch
te

Part-of-speech tell for tai / te

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tai is aconjunction and teapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29509, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tai is recorded at frequency rank #22,530, classified as aconj, pronounced […]. te is at rank #6,979, tagged as apron, pronounced [te].

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 29509, this pair ranks #1,765,473 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tai vs te

Shared letters: t. Private to "tai": ai. Private to "te": e.

"tai" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "te" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tai" and "te" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tai" is a conjunction and "te" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "tai" or "te" show up more?
"te" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,979 in our German list, against #22,530 for "tai". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "tai" vs "te" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "te" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,765,473 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tai" and "te" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs tai". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,765,473 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