fillevsfilmsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#312
“fille” frequency rank
#980
“films” frequency rank
1292
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fille films
Definition Enfant de genre féminin, par opposition à garçon ; aussi appelée fillette ou petite fille. Pluriel de film.

Where the eye mixes fille and films

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
fille
5 ch
films

Why the eye confuses fille with films

A purely visual mix-up. fille (\fij\) and films (\film\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1292, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fille is recorded at frequency rank #312, classified as anoun, pronounced \fij\. films is at rank #980, tagged as anoun, pronounced \film\.

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 1292, this pair ranks #438,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fille vs films

Shared letters: fil. Private to "fille": e. Private to "films": ms.

"fille" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "films" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • filleffille · filel · flile · iflle
  • filmsffilms · fillms · filmms · filmss · filsm · fimls · flims · iflms

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fille" and "films" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\fij\ versus \film\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "fille" vs "films" - which ranks higher?
"fille" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #312 in our French list, against #980 for "films". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "films" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #438,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fille" and "films" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filez vs films". 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 #438,299 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