takingvstalkingTell them apart

Which to use

“taking” and “talking” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#47,767
“taking” frequency rank
#29,813
“talking” frequency rank
77580
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature taking talking
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs take Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs talk

Letter map: taking vs talking

Shared letters muted; letters that set taking and talking apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

6 ch
taking
7 ch
talking

Spelling & dictionary notes on taking vs talking

taking and talking are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77580, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

taking is recorded at frequency rank #47,767, classified as averb, pronounced […]. talking is at rank #29,813, 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 77580, this pair ranks #257,636 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of taking vs talking

Shared letters: agiknt. Private to "taking": -. Private to "talking": l.

"taking" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "talking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • takingatking · taikng · takign · takingg · takinng · takking · taknig · tkaing
  • talkingatlking · takling · talikng · talkign · talkingg · talkinng · talkking · talknig

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "taking" and "talking" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "taking" or "talking" show up more?
"talking" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,813 in our German list, against #47,767 for "taking". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "taking" and "talking". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "taking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "talking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #257,636 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "taking" and "talking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs taking". 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 #257,636 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