essayervsessayeraiWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#963
“essayer” frequency rank
#34,088
“essayerai” frequency rank
35051
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature essayer essayerai
Definition Mettre à l’essai ; vérifier le bon fonctionnement. Première personne du singulier du futur du verbe essayer.

Where the eye mixes essayer and essayerai

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. essayer runs 7 letters (VCCVVVC) against essayerai's 9 (VCCVVVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
essayer
9 ch
essayerai

Look-alike desk: essayer vs essayerai

A purely visual mix-up. essayer (\e.se.je\) and essayerai (\e.sɛ.jə.ʁe\) 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 extra letter(s) - “essayer” sits inside “essayerai”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35051, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

essayer is recorded at frequency rank #963, classified as averb, pronounced \e.se.je\. essayerai is at rank #34,088, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.sɛ.jə.ʁe\.

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 35051, this pair ranks #279,532 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of essayer vs essayerai

Shared letters: aersy. Private to "essayer": -. Private to "essayerai": i.

"essayer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC  ·  "essayerai" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • essayeresasyer · esayer · essaeyr · essayerr · essayre · essayyer · essyaer · sesayer
  • essayeraiesasyerai · esayerai · essaeyrai · essayeari · essayeria · essayerrai · essayreai · essayyerai

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "essayer" and "essayerai" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\e.se.je\ versus \e.sɛ.jə.ʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "essayer" or "essayerai"?
"essayer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #963 in our French list, against #34,088 for "essayerai". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "essayer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "essayerai" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #279,532 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "essayer" and "essayerai" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essayerai 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 #279,532 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