marchésvsmarchonsTell them apart

Quick tell: marchés is a noun, marchons is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“marchés” is a noun and “marchons” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,528
“marchés” frequency rank
#24,280
“marchons” frequency rank
26808
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marchés marchons
Definition Pluriel de marché. Première personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de marcher.

Where the eye mixes marchés and marchons

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. marchés runs 7 letters (CVCCCVC) against marchons's 8 (CVCCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
marchés
8 ch
marchons

Why the eye confuses marchés with marchons

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marchés is \maʁ.ʃe\ while marchons is \maʁ.ʃɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marchés is recorded at frequency rank #2,528, classified as anoun, pronounced \maʁ.ʃe\. marchons is at rank #24,280, tagged as averb, pronounced \maʁ.ʃɔ̃\.

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 26808, this pair ranks #332,748 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marchés vs marchons

Shared letters: achmrs. Private to "marchés": é. Private to "marchons": no.

"marchés" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC  ·  "marchons" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marchons ← amrchons · macrhons · marcchons · marchhons · marchnos · marchonns · marchonss · marchosn

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marchés" and "marchons" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marchés" is a noun and "marchons" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "marchés" or "marchons" show up more?
"marchés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,528 in our French list, against #24,280 for "marchons". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marchés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marchons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #332,748 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marchés" and "marchons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marathons vs marchons". 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 #332,748 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