Which to use
“listen” and “listés” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #37,413
- “listen” frequency rank
- #37,895
- “listés” frequency rank
- 75308
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | listen | listés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Écouter. | Participe passé masculin pluriel de lister. |
Where the eye mixes listen and listés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. listen and listés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: listen vs listés
A purely visual mix-up. listen (\ˈlɪsən\) and listés (\lis.te\) 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 75308, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
listen is recorded at frequency rank #37,413, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈlɪsən\. listés is at rank #37,895, tagged as averb, pronounced \lis.te\.
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 75308, this pair ranks #34,476 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of listen vs listés
Shared letters: ilst. Private to "listen": en. Private to "listés": é.
"listen" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "listés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- listen ← ilsten · lissten · listenn · listne · listten · litsen · llisten · lsiten
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "listen" and "listés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "listen" vs "listés" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "listen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "listés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #34,476 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "listen" and "listés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leste vs listés". 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 #34,476 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.