Which to use
“mental” and “mentales” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,675
- “mental” frequency rank
- #14,510
- “mentales” frequency rank
- 20185
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mental | mentales |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui se fait, qui s’exécute dans l’esprit, dans l’entendement. | Féminin pluriel de mental. |
Same sound, different letters: mental vs mentales
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. mental runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against mentales's 8 (CVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - mental and mentales
This is the hard kind. mental and mentales are pronounced identically (\mɑ̃.tal\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mental” sits inside “mentales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20185, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mental is recorded at frequency rank #5,675, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɑ̃.tal\. mentales is at rank #14,510, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɑ̃.tal\.
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 20185, this pair ranks #369,556 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of mental vs mentales
Shared letters: aelmnt. Private to "mental": -. Private to "mentales": s.
"mental" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "mentales" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "mental" and "mentales" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "mental" or "mentales"?
What to do next
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "mental" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mentales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #369,556 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mental" and "mentales" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mental vs mentant". 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 #369,556 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.