The invention relates to a method for inputting and identifying a character string, in which several successively inputted user inputs for forming the character string are identified and a confidence analysis is carried out, in which each user input is compared to a number of characters (7) and each of the compared characters (7) is allocated a value of a confidence measure (22.1, 22.2, 22.3, 22.4) which evaluates the correlation of the user input to said characters. Character combinations (24.1, 24.2, 24.3, 24.4) are formed from the characters (21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4) associated with the user inputs. Global confidence measures (25.1, 25.2, 25.3, 25.4) are determined for the character combinations (24.1, 24.2, 24.3, 24.4) from the confidence measures (22.1, 22.2, 22.3, 22.4) associated with the characters (21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4). Finally, a partial amount of the character combinations (24.1, 24.2, 24.3, 24.4) is emitted in accordance with the global confidence measures (25.1, 25.2, 25.3, 25.4). The invention further relates to a correspondingly designed device (1) for carrying out said method and to a vehicle (9) comprising said type of device (1).