TapetevstäteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#29,814
“Tapete” frequency rank
#17,434
“täte” frequency rank
47248
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Tapete täte
Definition Wandbeschichtung aus einem dünnen und biegsamen Material, die mittels geeignetem Klebstoff auf eine Wand geklebt werden kann 1. Person Singular Konjunktiv Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs tun

Where the eye mixes Tapete and täte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Tapete runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against täte's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
Tapete
4 ch
täte

Look-alike desk: Tapete vs täte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Tapete is [taˈpeːtə] while täte is [ˈtɛːtə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47248, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Tapete is recorded at frequency rank #29,814, classified as anoun, pronounced [taˈpeːtə]. 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 47248, this pair ranks #1,291,052 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Tapete vs täte

Shared letters: et. Private to "Tapete": ap. Private to "täte": ä.

"Tapete" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "täte" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Tapete ← atpete · taepte · tapeet · tapette · tappete · taptee · tpaete · ttapete

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Tapete" for "täte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Tapete" is a noun and "täte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Tapete" 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 #29,814 for "Tapete". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Tapete" 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 #1,291,052 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Tapete" and "täte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tapes vs Tapete". 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 #1,291,052 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