# were vs work

> German confusable word pair

## The two words

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

### work
*verb · IPA [wɜːk] · frequency rank #7,425*
einer (meist festen) bezahlten Arbeit nachgehen; arbeiten

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/de/vs/were-vs-work