whichvsyearWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: which is a pronoun, year is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“which” is a pronoun and “year” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,204
“which” frequency rank
#13,524
“year” frequency rank
25728
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature which year
Definition welche? eine Dauer von 365 Tagen; Jahr

Letter map: which vs year

Shared letters muted; letters that set which and year apart highlighted. No shared letter run.

5 ch
which
4 ch
year

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: which is apronoun and yearanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25728, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

which is recorded at frequency rank #12,204, classified as apron, pronounced […]. year is at rank #13,524, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 25728, this pair ranks #1,828,871 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of which vs year

Shared letters: none. Private to "which": chiw. Private to "year": aery.

"which" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "year" · 4 letters · shape VVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whichhwich · whcih · whhich · whicch · whichh · whihc · wihch · wwhich
  • yeareyar · yaer · yearr · yera · yyear

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "which" and "year" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "which" is a pronoun and "year" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "which" or "year"?
"which" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,204 in our German list, against #13,524 for "year". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list