Which to use
“émis” is a verb and “étais” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,454
- “émis” frequency rank
- #358
- “étais” frequency rank
- 6812
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | émis | étais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé masculin de émettre. | Pluriel de étai. |
Where the eye mixes émis and étais
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. émis runs 4 letters (VCVC) against étais's 5 (VCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: émis vs étais
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: émis is \e.mi\ while étais is \e.tɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6812, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
émis is recorded at frequency rank #6,454, classified as averb, pronounced \e.mi\. étais is at rank #358, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.tɛ\.
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 6812, this pair ranks #425,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of émis vs étais
Shared letters: isé. Private to "émis": m. Private to "étais": at.
"émis" · 4 letters · shape VCVC · "étais" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "émis" for "étais" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "émis" or "étais" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "émis" and "étais" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "émis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "étais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #425,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "émis" and "étais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "émis vs émit". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #425,145 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.