Which to use
“arrivais” and “arrivait” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #12,907
- “arrivais” frequency rank
- #5,727
- “arrivait” frequency rank
- 18634
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | arrivais | arrivait |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif imparfait du verbe arriver. | Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif imparfait du verbe arriver. |
Same sound, different letters: arrivais vs arrivait
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.
Homophone desk: arrivais vs arrivait
This is the hard kind. arrivais and arrivait are pronounced identically (\a.ʁi.vɛ\) 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 differ by a single letter - s in “arrivais” becomes t in “arrivait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
arrivais is recorded at frequency rank #12,907, classified as averb, pronounced \a.ʁi.vɛ\. arrivait is at rank #5,727, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.ʁi.vɛ\.
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 18634, this pair ranks #377,295 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of arrivais vs arrivait
Shared letters: airv. Private to "arrivais": s. Private to "arrivait": t.
"arrivais" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVVC · "arrivait" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "arrivais" and "arrivait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "arrivais" or "arrivait" show up more?
Useful next steps
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "arrivais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "arrivait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #377,295 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "arrivais" and "arrivait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arrivage vs arrivais". 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 #377,295 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.