languevslongeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#629
“langue” frequency rank
#17,469
“longe” frequency rank
18098
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature langue longe
Definition Organe musculaire charnu et mobile, situé à l’intérieur de la bouche, et permettant de percevoir le sens du goût et d’articuler certains sons. Longue corde pour le dressage des chevaux.

Where the eye mixes langue and longe

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
langue
5 ch
longe

Why the eye confuses langue with longe

A purely visual mix-up. langue (\lɑ̃ɡ\) and longe (\lɔ̃ʒ\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18098, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

langue is recorded at frequency rank #629, classified as anoun, pronounced \lɑ̃ɡ\. longe is at rank #17,469, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lɔ̃ʒ\.

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 18098, this pair ranks #380,009 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of langue vs longe

Shared letters: egln. Private to "langue": au. Private to "longe": o.

"langue" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "longe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • languealngue · lagnue · langeu · langgue · lanngue · lanuge · llangue · lnague
  • longellonge · lnoge · logne · loneg · longge · lonnge · olnge

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "langue" and "longe" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\lɑ̃ɡ\ versus \lɔ̃ʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "langue" or "longe" show up more?
"langue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #629 in our French list, against #17,469 for "longe". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "langue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "longe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #380,009 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "langue" and "longe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "longe vs longo". 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 #380,009 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