allaivsallerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“allai” and “aller” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#38,638
“allai” frequency rank
#201
“aller” frequency rank
38839
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature allai aller
Definition Première personne de l’indicatif passé simple du verbe aller. Se déplacer jusqu'à un endroit.

Same sound, different letters: allai vs aller

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. allai (VCCVV) and aller (VCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
allai
5 ch
aller

Homophone desk: allai vs aller

This is the hard kind. allai and aller are pronounced identically (\a.le\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38839, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

allai is recorded at frequency rank #38,638, classified as averb, pronounced \a.le\. 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 38839, this pair ranks #252,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of allai vs aller

Shared letters: al. Private to "allai": i. Private to "aller": er.

"allai" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV  ·  "aller" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • allai ← alali · lalai
  • aller ← alelr · aler · allerr · allre · laler

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "allai" and "aller" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\a.le\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "allai" vs "aller" - which ranks higher?
"aller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #201 in our French list, against #38,638 for "allai". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "allai" / "aller". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "allai" 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 #252,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "allai" and "aller" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "allai vs allain". 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 #252,430 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