appelvsaprèsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: appel is a noun, après is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“appel” is a noun and “après” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#703
“appel” frequency rank
#76
“après” frequency rank
779
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appel après
Definition Action d’appeler par la voix, par un geste ou par tout autre signal, pour faire venir à soi. Marque la postériorité dans le temps.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set appel and après apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
appel
5 ch
après

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

appel and après form a confusable pair in the French index, two distinct headwords that are easily confused because they look alike, sound alike, or both. They share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions - close enough that the eye skips over the difference, far enough that meaning fully diverges. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 779, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appel is recorded at frequency rank #703, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.pɛl\. après is at rank #76, tagged as aprep, pronounced \a.pʁɛ\.

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 779, this pair ranks #439,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Frequency comparison

appel#703
après#76

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "appel" and "après" be used interchangeably?
No, "appel" and "après" have distinct meanings and cannot be swapped without changing the meaning of a sentence. Understanding the specific definition and context for each word is essential for correct usage.

Remembering appel vs après

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “appel”; for a preposition, it's “après”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “appel” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list