essayaisvsessayeraisWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#17,128
“essayais” frequency rank
#47,877
“essayerais” frequency rank
65005
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature essayais essayerais
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de essayer. Première personne du singulier du conditionnel présent de essayer.

Where the eye mixes essayais and essayerais

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. essayais runs 8 letters (VCCVVVVC) against essayerais's 10 (VCCVVVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
essayais
10 ch
essayerais

Visual trap between essayais and essayerais

A purely visual mix-up. essayais (\e.sɛ.jɛ\) and essayerais (\e.sɛ.jə.ʁɛ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65005, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

essayais is recorded at frequency rank #17,128, classified as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jɛ\. essayerais is at rank #47,877, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jə.ʁɛ\.

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 65005, this pair ranks #74,324 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of essayais vs essayerais

Shared letters: aeisy. Private to "essayais": -. Private to "essayerais": r.

"essayais" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVVVC  ·  "essayerais" · 10 letters · shape VCCVVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • essayaisesasyais · esayais · essaayis · essayaiss · essayasi · essayias · essayyais · essyaais
  • essayeraisesasyerais · esayerais · essaeyrais · essayearis · essayeraiss · essayerasi · essayerias · essayerrais

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "essayais" and "essayerais" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\e.sɛ.jɛ\ versus \e.sɛ.jə.ʁɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "essayais" or "essayerais"?
"essayais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,128 in our French list, against #47,877 for "essayerais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "essayais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "essayerais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,324 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "essayais" and "essayerais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essaierais vs essayerais". 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 #74,324 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