douala

\dwa.la\

/\dwa.la\/ noun

The verdict

“douala” has 7 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #19,515. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#19,515
frequency rank, French
5,307
“D” headwords
7
tracked misspellings
7
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Langue bantoue dont le domaine originel est limité au bassin du Cameroun, autour de l’estuaire formé par les fleuves Mongo, Wouri et Dibamba (langue littéraire mais aussi et surtout langue véhicula...

Corpus desk

Index FR-douala · douala · French

douala · rank #19,515 · 7 variants · 7 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #19,515
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 7 pairs
  • VAR-MID 7 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,307
  • PHOTO-FINISH dotées

Nearest frequency peer: dotées (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « douala »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « douala » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

douala vs dual
67% similar
douala vs douma
67% similar
douala vs double
67% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for douala
PropertyValue
Headworddouala
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\dwa.la\
Letters6
Frequency rank#19,515
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs7
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « douala »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).doualase place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « dotées » (#19,514), « DLC » (#19,512), « déceptions » (#19,518). Parmi 5,307 lemmes en « D », « douala » est au #19,515. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 7 spelling variants around douala (IPA \dwa.la\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #19,515 among 5,307 “D” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Langue bantoue dont le domaine originel est limité au bassin du Cameroun, autour de l’estuaire formé par les fleuves Mongo, Wouri et Dibamba (langue littéraire mais aussi et surtout langue véhicula...".

Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for douala, with forms such as "ddouala", "doaula", and "douaal". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "dual", "douma", "double", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is douala, spelled D-O-U-A-L-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    Langue bantoue dont le domaine originel est limité au bassin du Cameroun, autour de l’estuaire formé par les fleuves Mongo, Wouri et Dibamba (langue littéraire mais aussi et surtout langue véhiculaire).

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how douala appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. C'est pour ça que lorsque je vais au Cameroun pour acheter quelques gris-gris […] en quelques semaines je parle le douala sans accent !

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • ddouala
  • doaula
  • douaal
  • doualla
  • doulaa
  • duoala
  • oduala

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of douala - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

ddouala1doaula2douaal2doualla1doulaa2duoala2oduala2
Edit distance from "douala"

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "douala"?
"douala" is spelled D-O-U-A-L-A. The IPA pronunciation is \dwa.la\.
What does "douala" mean?
As a noun, "douala" means: Langue bantoue dont le domaine originel est limité au bassin du Cameroun, autour de l’estuaire formé par les fleuves Mongo, Wouri et Dibamba (langue littéraire mais aussi et surtout langue véhicula...
What words are commonly confused with "douala"?
"douala" is commonly confused with "dual", "douma", "double". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "douala"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "douala" is \dwa.la\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "douala" come from?
"douala" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "douala", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list