tale
[ˈteɪl]
The verdict
“tale” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #32,304) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #32,304
- frequency rank, German
- 2,684
- “T” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Bericht
Corpus desk
Index DE-tale · tale · German
tale · rank #32,304 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #32,304
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,684
- PHOTO-FINISH Takte
Nearest frequency peer: Takte (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Häufigkeitsnachbarn des Verwechslers „tale“
Peers mit ähnlichem Corpus-Gewicht, getrennt von den Verwechslungspaaren unten
- Südosteuropa
Südosteuropa
67,700 corpus weight
- Südsee
Südsee
67,699 corpus weight
- Takte
Takte
67,698 corpus weight
- tale
tale
67,697 corpus weight
- Tanke
Tanke
67,696 corpus weight
- tatenlos
tatenlos
67,695 corpus weight
What this shows Balken platzieren „tale“ gegen die nächsten gerankten deutschen Lemmata, kein Reprint der Verwechslungsdesk.
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 | tale |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [ˈteɪl] |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #32,304 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus-Rang neben Verwechslern von „tale“
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for tale is neighbouring look-alikes ("te", "Tl", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced [ˈteɪl]. Frequency #32,304 among 2,684 “T” headwords. 4 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for tale, with forms such as "tael", "talle", and "tlae". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "te", "Tl", "Tat", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct German form is tale, spelled T-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1Bericht
- 2Erzählung, Geschichte
- 3Lüge, Lügengeschichte, Märchen (tall tales)
- 4Fabel
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how tale appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
She enjoyed all delightful children’s tale, but at most Cinderella.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- tael
- talle
- tlae
- ttale
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of tale - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
How do you spell "tale"?
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Similar German words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tale", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked German headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).