writtenvsyearTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#43,644
“written” frequency rank
#13,524
“year” frequency rank
57168
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature written year
Definition Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs write eine Dauer von 365 Tagen; Jahr

Letter map: written vs year

Shared letters muted; letters that set written and year apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

7 ch
written
4 ch
year

Role in the sentence - written and year

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: written is averb and yearanoun. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57168, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

written is recorded at frequency rank #43,644, classified as averb, 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 57168, this pair ranks #911,821 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of written vs year

Shared letters: er. Private to "written": intw. Private to "year": ay.

"written" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "year" · 4 letters · shape VVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • writtenrwitten · wirtten · writen · writetn · writtenn · writtne · wrritten · wrtiten
  • yeareyar · yaer · yearr · yera · yyear

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "written" and "year" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "written" is a verb and "year" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "written" or "year" show up more?
"year" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,524 in our German list, against #43,644 for "written". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "written" and "year". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "written" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "year" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #911,821 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "written" and "year" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs written". 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 #911,821 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