Test your knowledge of commonly misspelled German words.
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German spelling is full of traps. Loanwords from Greek, Latin and French in particular trip up even seasoned writers. Words like "Rhythmus", "Chrysantheme" or "Mayonnaise" are among those where wrong spellings stubbornly persist – a silent h here, a doubled consonant there, and the mistake is made.
Many of these pitfalls have a historical background. The Greek "ph" survives in words like "Katastrophe" or "Prophezeiung", while the French double-n was carried into "saisonnier". The 1996 spelling reform also reshuffled some long-running puzzles: "selbstständig" is now the Duden-recommended form, and the Germanised "Majonäse" was dropped from the dictionary in 2017. Knowing these origins makes the spellings far easier to remember.
Whether at work, at school or in everyday emails, confident spelling leaves a strong impression. Dive into the trickiest words of the German language and find out how sharp you really are. The explanations after each question reveal where the word comes from and which mnemonic tricks can help you lock it in.
