aftervsallerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: after is a noun, aller is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“after” is a noun and “aller” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,700
“after” frequency rank
#201
“aller” frequency rank
11901
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature after aller
Definition Réunion festive qui suit un événement. Se déplacer jusqu'à un endroit.

Where the eye mixes after and aller

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
after
5 ch
aller

Why the eye confuses after with aller

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: after is \af.tœʁ\ while aller is \a.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11901, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

after is recorded at frequency rank #11,700, classified as anoun, pronounced \af.tœʁ\. aller is at rank #201, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.le\.

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 11901, this pair ranks #407,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of after vs aller

Shared letters: aer. Private to "after": ft. Private to "aller": l.

"after" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "aller" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • afterafetr · affter · afterr · aftre · aftter · atfer · fater
  • alleralelr · aler · allerr · allre · laler

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "after" for "aller" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "after" is a noun and "aller" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "after" vs "aller" - which ranks higher?
"aller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #201 in our French list, against #11,700 for "after". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "after" and "aller" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "after" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aller" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #407,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "after" and "aller" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "after vs astor". 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 #407,354 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list