weekvsWienWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: week is a noun, Wien is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“week” is a noun and “Wien” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,982
“week” frequency rank
#563
“Wien” frequency rank
14545
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature week Wien
Definition Woche Hauptstadt Österreichs

Where the eye mixes week and Wien

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
week
4 ch
Wien

Why the eye confuses week with Wien

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: week is [wiːk] while Wien is [viːn]. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14545, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

week is recorded at frequency rank #13,982, classified as anoun, pronounced [wiːk]. Wien is at rank #563, tagged as aname, pronounced [viːn].

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 14545, this pair ranks #1,950,455 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of week vs Wien

Shared letters: ew. Private to "week": k. Private to "Wien": in.

"week" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Wien" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • weekewek · weekk · wek · weke · wweek
  • Wieniwen · wienn · wwien

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "week" for "Wien" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "week" is a noun and "Wien" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "week" vs "Wien" - which ranks higher?
"Wien" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #563 in our German list, against #13,982 for "week". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "week" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Wien" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,950,455 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "week" and "Wien" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "week vs went". 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 #1,950,455 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