Which to use
“attendre” and “attends” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #784
- “attendre” frequency rank
- #1,468
- “attends” frequency rank
- 2252
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | attendre | attends |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ne pas bouger, rester là où l’on est pour la venue de quelque chose ou de quelqu’un. | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de attendre. |
Where the eye mixes attendre and attends
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: attendre vs attends
A purely visual mix-up. attendre (\a.tɑ̃dʁ\) and attends (\a.tɑ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2252, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
attendre is recorded at frequency rank #784, classified as averb, pronounced \a.tɑ̃dʁ\. attends is at rank #1,468, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.tɑ̃\.
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 2252, this pair ranks #436,488 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of attendre vs attends
Shared letters: adent. Private to "attendre": r. Private to "attends": s.
"attendre" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCCV · "attends" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "attendre" and "attends" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "attendre" or "attends" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "attendre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "attends" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #436,488 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "attendre" and "attends" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "attendre vs attendrir". 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 #436,488 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.