tallvstäteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#47,046
“tall” frequency rank
#17,434
“täte” frequency rank
64480
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tall täte
Definition hoch, groß 1. Person Singular Konjunktiv Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs tun

Where the eye mixes tall and täte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. tall (CVCC) and täte (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
tall
4 ch
täte

Look-alike desk: tall vs täte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tall is [tɔːl] while täte is [ˈtɛːtə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64480, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tall is recorded at frequency rank #47,046, classified as anadj, pronounced [tɔːl]. täte is at rank #17,434, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈtɛːtə].

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 64480, this pair ranks #640,063 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tall vs täte

Shared letters: t. Private to "tall": al. Private to "täte": eä.

"tall" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "täte" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tall ← atll · tlal · ttall

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tall" for "täte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tall" is an adjective and "täte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "tall" or "täte" show up more?
"täte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,434 in our German list, against #47,046 for "tall". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "tall" and "täte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tall" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "täte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #640,063 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tall" and "täte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tall vs taut". 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 #640,063 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