valleyvsvollemWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: valley is a noun, vollem is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“valley” is a noun and “vollem” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,284
“valley” frequency rank
#6,874
“vollem” frequency rank
16158
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature valley vollem
Definition Tal Dativ Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs voll

Letter map: valley vs vollem

Shared letters muted; letters that set valley and vollem apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. valley (CVCCVV) and vollem (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
valley
6 ch
vollem

Role in the sentence - valley and vollem

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: valley is anoun and vollemanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16158, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

valley is recorded at frequency rank #9,284, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. vollem is at rank #6,874, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈfɔləm].

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 16158, this pair ranks #1,938,100 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of valley vs vollem

Shared letters: elv. Private to "valley": ay. Private to "vollem": mo.

"valley" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "vollem" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • valley ← avlley · valely · valey · valleyy · vallye · vlaley · vvalley
  • vollem ← ovllem · vlolem · volelm · volem · vollemm · vollme · vvollem

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "valley" for "vollem" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "valley" is a noun and "vollem" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "valley" or "vollem" show up more?
"vollem" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,874 in our German list, against #9,284 for "valley". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "valley" and "vollem".

  • Full dictionary entry for "valley" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vollem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,938,100 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "valley" and "vollem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs valley". 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 #1,938,100 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