Shanghai
\ʃɑ̃.ɡaj\
The verdict
“Shanghai” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #10,946 in French word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #10,946
- frequency rank, French
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Variante orthographique de Shanghaï.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Shanghai |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | \ʃɑ̃.ɡaj\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #10,946 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Shanghai” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for Shanghai is 8 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʃɑ̃.ɡaj\. Corpus data places it at rank #10,946 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Variante orthographique de Shanghaï.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for Shanghai, with forms such as "hsanghai", "sahnghai", and "shagnhai". 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 is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
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. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is Shanghai, spelled S-H-A-N-G-H-A-I, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Variante orthographique de Shanghaï.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsanghai,sahnghai,shagnhai,shangahi,shangghai,shanghhai,shanghia,shanhgai,shannghai,shhanghai,shnaghai,sshanghai
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Shanghai - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Edit distance from "Shanghai"
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “Shanghai, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/shanghai
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “Shanghai”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is S-H-A-N-G-H-A-I - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ʃɑ̃.ɡaj\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our French index: