comptéesvsconterWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#48,419
“comptées” frequency rank
#30,538
“conter” frequency rank
78957
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature comptées conter
Definition Pluriel de comptée. Exposer par un récit. Il se dit principalement de récits que l’on fait dans la conversation.

Same sound, different letters: comptées vs conter

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. comptées runs 8 letters (CVCCCVVC) against conter's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
comptées
6 ch
conter

Same sound, different spelling - comptées / conter

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: comptées and conter carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kɔ̃.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78957, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

comptées is recorded at frequency rank #48,419, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃.te\. conter is at rank #30,538, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.te\.

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 78957, this pair ranks #24,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of comptées vs conter

Shared letters: ceot. Private to "comptées": mpsé. Private to "conter": nr.

"comptées" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC  ·  "conter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • conter ← cconter · cnoter · conetr · connter · contter · cotner · ocnter

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "comptées" for "conter" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "comptées" is a noun and "conter" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "comptées" or "conter" show up more?
"conter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,538 in our French list, against #48,419 for "comptées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"comptées" and "conter" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "comptées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "conter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "comptées" and "conter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "comptées vs comptines". 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 #24,426 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