allavsauraWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#10,986
“alla” frequency rank
#364
“aura” frequency rank
11350
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alla aura
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif passé simple du verbe aller. Le « corps subtil », qui entourerait le corps physique. De forme ovoïde, l’aura changerait de couleur selon l’évolution, l’état émotionnel ou de santé du sujet.

Where the eye mixes alla and aura

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
alla
4 ch
aura

Why the eye confuses alla with aura

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: alla is \a.la\ while aura is \o.ʁa\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11350, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alla is recorded at frequency rank #10,986, classified as averb, pronounced \a.la\. aura is at rank #364, tagged as anoun, pronounced \o.ʁa\.

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 11350, this pair ranks #409,492 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of alla vs aura

Shared letters: a. Private to "alla": l. Private to "aura": ru.

"alla" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "aura" · 4 letters · shape VVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • allaalal
  • auraarua · auar · aurra · uara

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "alla" and "aura" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alla" is a verb and "aura" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "alla" or "aura" show up more?
"aura" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #364 in our French list, against #10,986 for "alla". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alla" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aura" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #409,492 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alla" and "aura" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aba vs alla". 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 #409,492 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