voranvsvotenWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: voran is a adverb, voten is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“voran” is an adverb and “voten” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,694
“voran” frequency rank
#32,856
“voten” frequency rank
36550
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voran voten
Definition vor jemand oder etwas anderem, an der Spitze abstimmen, wählen

Where the eye mixes voran and voten

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. voran and voten follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
voran
5 ch
voten

Visual trap between voran and voten

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: voran is [foˈʁan] while voten is [ˈvoːtn̩]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36550, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voran is recorded at frequency rank #3,694, classified as anadv, pronounced [foˈʁan]. voten is at rank #32,856, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈvoːtn̩].

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 36550, this pair ranks #1,612,745 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of voran vs voten

Shared letters: nov. Private to "voran": ar. Private to "voten": et.

"voran" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "voten" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voran ← ovran · voarn · vorann · vorna · vorran · vroan · vvoran
  • voten ← ovten · voetn · votenn · votne · votten · vtoen · vvoten

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "voran" for "voten" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "voran" is an adverb and "voten" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "voran" or "voten" show up more?
"voran" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,694 in our German list, against #32,856 for "voten". 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 "voran" and "voten" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "voran" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voten" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,612,745 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "voran" and "voten" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Velten vs voten". 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 #1,612,745 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