Mai
[maɪ̯]
The verdict
“Mai” is in the everyday core of German, ranked #586 in German word frequency and used as a noun.
- #586
- frequency rank, German
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - der fünfte Monat im Jahr
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 | Mai |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [maɪ̯] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #586 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Mai” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for Mai is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [maɪ̯]. Corpus data places it at rank #586 in overall German word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "der fünfte Monat im Jahr".
No generated misspelling entries exist for Mai in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular German conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mm", "me", "my", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct German form is Mai, spelled M-A-I.
Definition
- 1der fünfte Monat im Jahr
Synonyms
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 “Mai”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is M-A-I - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [maɪ̯] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “mm” - see the side-by-side comparison. Mai vs mm
- 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.