apprécievsapprocheTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#3,893
“apprécie” frequency rank
#1,385
“approche” frequency rank
5278
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature apprécie approche
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe apprécier. Action de s’approcher.

Where the eye mixes apprécie and approche

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

8 ch
apprécie
8 ch
approche

Visual trap between apprécie and approche

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: apprécie is \a.pʁe.si\ while approche is \a.pʁɔʃ\. 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 5278, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

apprécie is recorded at frequency rank #3,893, classified as averb, pronounced \a.pʁe.si\. approche is at rank #1,385, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.pʁɔʃ\.

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 5278, this pair ranks #429,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of apprécie vs approche

Shared letters: acepr. Private to "apprécie": . Private to "approche": ho.

"apprécie" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCVV  ·  "approche" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • approcheapporche · apprcohe · approcche · approceh · approchhe · approhce · apprroche · aproche

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "apprécie" and "approche" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "apprécie" is a verb and "approche" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "apprécie" or "approche" show up more?
"approche" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,385 in our French list, against #3,893 for "apprécie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "apprécie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "approche" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #429,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "apprécie" and "approche" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "apprécie vs apprentie". 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 #429,453 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