comptervscompteraWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“compter” and “comptera” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,323
“compter” frequency rank
#25,941
“comptera” frequency rank
27264
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature compter comptera
Definition Déterminer (une quantité, un nombre), plus particulièrement par un dénombrement, sinon par un calcul. Troisième personne du singulier du futur de compter.

Where the eye mixes compter and comptera

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

7 ch
compter
8 ch
comptera

Visual trap between compter and comptera

A purely visual mix-up. compter (\kɔ̃.te\) and comptera (\kɔ̃.tə.ʁa\) 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 extra letter(s) - “compter” sits inside “comptera”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27264, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

compter is recorded at frequency rank #1,323, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.te\. comptera is at rank #25,941, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.tə.ʁa\.

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 27264, this pair ranks #330,120 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of compter vs comptera

Shared letters: cemoprt. Private to "compter": -. Private to "comptera": a.

"compter" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC  ·  "comptera" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • compterccompter · cmopter · commpter · competr · comppter · compterr · comptre · comptter
  • compteraccomptera · cmoptera · commptera · competra · compptera · comptear · compterra · comptrea

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "compter" for "comptera" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ̃.te\ versus \kɔ̃.tə.ʁa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "compter" vs "comptera" - which ranks higher?
"compter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,323 in our French list, against #25,941 for "comptera". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "compter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "comptera" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #330,120 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "compter" and "comptera" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "comptées vs comptera". 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 #330,120 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