talkiesvstalkingWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“talkies” and “talking” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#49,664
“talkies” frequency rank
#520
“talking” frequency rank
50184
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature talkies talking
Definition plural of talkie The action of the verb talk.

Letter map: talkies vs talking

Shared letters muted; letters that set talkies and talking apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. talkies (CVCCVVC) and talking (CVCCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
talkies
7 ch
talking

Corpus notes: talkies and talking

talkies and talking are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50184, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

talkies is recorded at frequency rank #49,664, classified as anoun. talking is at rank #520, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɔːkɪŋ/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 50184, this pair ranks #176,599 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of talkies vs talking

Shared letters: aiklt. Private to "talkies": es. Private to "talking": gn.

"talkies" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "talking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • talkies ← atlkies · taklies · talikes · talkeis · talkiess · talkise · talkkies · tallkies
  • talking ← atlking · takling · talikng · talkign · talkingg · talkinng · talkking · talknig

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "talkies" and "talking" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "talkies" or "talking" show up more?
"talking" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #520 in our English list, against #49,664 for "talkies". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "talkies" and "talking".

  • Full dictionary entry for "talkies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "talking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #176,599 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "talkies" and "talking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "talkies vs tallies". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #176,599 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list