Which to use
“montaient” is a verb and “montais” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,431
- “montaient” frequency rank
- #49,234
- “montais” frequency rank
- 86665
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | montaient | montais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de monter. | Relatif à Mont, commune française située dans le département des Hautes-Pyrénées. |
Same sound, different letters: montaient vs montais
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. montaient runs 9 letters (CVCCVVVCC) against montais's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - montaient / montais
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: montaient and montais carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mɔ̃.tɛ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86665, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
montaient is recorded at frequency rank #37,431, classified as averb, pronounced \mɔ̃.tɛ\. montais is at rank #49,234, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɔ̃.tɛ\.
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 86665, this pair ranks #9,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of montaient vs montais
Shared letters: aimnot. Private to "montaient": e. Private to "montais": s.
"montaient" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVVCC · "montais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "montaient" and "montais" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "montaient" or "montais" show up more?
What to do next
"montaient" and "montais" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "montaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "montais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #9,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "montaient" and "montais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mondains vs montais". 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 #9,378 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.