Which to use
“le” is an article and “lo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3
- “le” frequency rank
- #8,119
- “lo” frequency rank
- 8122
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | le | lo |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ce… dont on parle maintenant. Déterminant marquant un nom masculin singulier, référant à une seule entité possible dans un contexte. | Année. |
Where the eye mixes le and lo
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: le is \lə\ while lo is \lo\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “le” becomes o in “lo”, and the parts of speech differ too (article vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8122, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
le is recorded at frequency rank #3, classified as anarticle, pronounced \lə\. lo is at rank #8,119, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lo\.
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 8122, this pair ranks #421,045 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of le vs lo
Shared letters: l. Private to "le": e. Private to "lo": o.
"le" · 2 letters · shape CV · "lo" · 2 letters · shape CV