faisaientvsfaisaisTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,137
“faisaient” frequency rank
#3,610
“faisais” frequency rank
6747
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faisaient faisais
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de faire. Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de faire.

Same sound, different letters: faisaient vs faisais

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. faisaient runs 9 letters (CVVCVVVCC) against faisais's 7 (CVVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
faisaient
7 ch
faisais

Ear matches; page differs - faisaient and faisais

This is the hard kind. faisaient and faisais are pronounced identically (\fə.zɛ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6747, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

faisaient is recorded at frequency rank #3,137, classified as averb, pronounced \fə.zɛ\. faisais is at rank #3,610, tagged as averb, pronounced \fə.zɛ\.

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 6747, this pair ranks #425,357 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of faisaient vs faisais

Shared letters: afis. Private to "faisaient": ent. Private to "faisais": -.

"faisaient" · 9 letters · shape CVVCVVVCC  ·  "faisais" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • faisaient ← afisaient · faiasient · faisaeint · faisaiennt · faisaientt · faisaietn · faisainet · faisiaent
  • faisais ← afisais · faiasis · faisaiss · faisasi · faisias · faissais · fasiais · ffaisais

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "faisaient" and "faisais" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\fə.zɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "faisaient" or "faisais" show up more?
"faisaient" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,137 in our French list, against #3,610 for "faisais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "faisaient" / "faisais". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faisaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "faisais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #425,357 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faisaient" and "faisais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faisais vs faisans". 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 #425,357 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