le
[lə]
The verdict
“le” is a regularly-used German word, ranked #1,852 in German word frequency and used as a determiner.
- #1,852
- frequency rank, German
- 2
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - der, die, das
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | le |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Determiner |
| IPA | [lə] |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #1,852 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “le” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for le is 2 letters long, classified as a determiner, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [lə]. Corpus data places it at rank #1,852 in overall German word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "der, die, das".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for le, a sign its spelling follows regular German conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Li", "LG", "LP", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct German form is le, spelled L-E.
Definition
- 1der, die, das
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “le”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [lə] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Li” - see the side-by-side comparison. le vs Li
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.