# waren vs were

> German confusable word pair

## The two words

### waren
*verb · IPA [ˈvaːʁən] · frequency rank #115*
1. Person Plural Präteritum Indikativ Aktiv des Verbs sein

### were
*verb · IPA [wɜː] · frequency rank #13,071*
2. Person Singular simple past des Verbs be

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-09-03.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/de/vs/waren-vs-were