takenvstapesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: taken is a adjective, tapes is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“taken” is an adjective and “tapes” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,860
“taken” frequency rank
#41,496
“tapes” frequency rank
84356
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature taken tapes
Definition Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs tak 2. Person Singular Präsens Konjunktiv des Verbs tapar

Letter map: taken vs tapes

Shared letters muted; letters that set taken and tapes apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. taken and tapes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
taken
5 ch
tapes

Role in the sentence - taken and tapes

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: taken is anadjective and tapesaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84356, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

taken is recorded at frequency rank #42,860, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈtakn̩]. tapes is at rank #41,496, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 84356, this pair ranks #125,061 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of taken vs tapes

Shared letters: aet. Private to "taken": kn. Private to "tapes": ps.

"taken" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "tapes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • taken ← taekn · takenn · takken · tkaen · ttaken
  • tapes ← atpes · taeps · tapess · tappes · tapse · tpaes · ttapes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "taken" and "tapes" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "taken" is an adjective and "tapes" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "taken" or "tapes" show up more?
"tapes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,496 in our German list, against #42,860 for "taken". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "taken" and "tapes".

  • Full dictionary entry for "taken" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tapes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #125,061 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "taken" and "tapes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs tapes". 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 #125,061 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