te

\tə\

/\tə\/ pron

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“te” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #103) as a pronoun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#103
frequency rank, French
3,703
“T” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pronom à la deuxième personne du singulier, utilisé pour désigner celui à qui l’on parle, en tant que complément d’objet direct ou indirect.

Corpus desk

Index FR-te · te · French

te · rank #103 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #103
  • LEN-SHORT 2 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,703
  • PHOTO-FINISH monde

Nearest frequency peer: monde (-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.

Frequency neighbourhood for “te”

Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)

corpus weight

What this shows Bars show where “te” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.

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).

te vs tu
50% similar
te vs TV
0% similar
te vs Tl
0% similar

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

Key facts for te
PropertyValue
Headwordte
LanguageFrench
Part of speechPronoun
IPA\tə\
Letters2
Frequency rank#103
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Où “te” se place dans la fréquence du français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.tese place ici:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « monde » (#102), « fois » (#104), « dire » (#101). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for te is neighbouring look-alikes ("tu", "TV", …), not just typos; it is apronoun pronounced \tə\. Frequency #103 among 3,703 “T” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

te has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "tu", "TV", "Tl", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is te, spelled T-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Pronom à la deuxième personne du singulier, utilisé pour désigner celui à qui l’on parle, en tant que complément d’objet direct ou indirect.
  2. 2
    Pour intensifier le discours, dans un emploi explétif (datif éthique).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Je te laisse, je n’ai pas le temps. / Je t'envie. (COD)
  2. Je te donne tout ce que tu veux / Il t'en veut beaucoup. (COI)

This word in other languages

you(English)te(Español)dich(Deutsch)

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 "te"?
"te" is spelled T-E. The IPA pronunciation is \tə\.
What does "te" mean?
As a pronoun, "te" means: Pronom à la deuxième personne du singulier, utilisé pour désigner celui à qui l’on parle, en tant que complément d’objet direct ou indirect.
What words are commonly confused with "te"?
"te" is commonly confused with "tu", "TV", "Tl". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "te"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "te" is \tə\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "te" come from?
"te" 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.

What to do next

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PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Data Source

Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list