jouvsjouezConfusable pair

Quick tell: jou is a pronoun, jouez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“jou” is a pronoun and “jouez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,878
“jou” frequency rank
#8,729
“jouez” frequency rank
47607
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature jou jouez
Definition Pronom personnel objet de la deuxième personne du singulier : te. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de jouer.

Letter map: jou vs jouez

Shared letters muted; letters that set jou and jouez apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. jou runs 3 letters (CVV) against jouez's 5 (CVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
jou
5 ch
jouez

Part-of-speech tell for jou / jouez

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: jou is apronoun and jouezaverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “jou” sits inside “jouez”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47607, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

jou is recorded at frequency rank #38,878, classified as apron. jouez is at rank #8,729, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʒwe\.

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 47607, this pair ranks #185,608 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of jou vs jouez

Shared letters: jou. Private to "jou": -. Private to "jouez": ez.

"jou" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "jouez" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • jouezjjouez · joeuz · jouezz · jouze · juoez · ojuez

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "jou" and "jouez" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "jou" is a pronoun and "jouez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "jou" or "jouez" show up more?
"jouez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,729 in our French list, against #38,878 for "jou". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "jou" and "jouez". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "jou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "jouez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,608 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "jou" and "jouez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jor vs jou". 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 #185,608 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