montaientvsmontrentWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“montaient” and “montrent” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#37,431
“montaient” frequency rank
#2,937
“montrent” frequency rank
40368
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature montaient montrent
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de monter. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de montrer.

Where the eye mixes montaient and montrent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. montaient runs 9 letters (CVCCVVVCC) against montrent's 8 (CVCCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
montaient
8 ch
montrent

Visual trap between montaient and montrent

A purely visual mix-up. montaient (\mɔ̃.tɛ\) and montrent (\mɔ̃tʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40368, 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\. montrent is at rank #2,937, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɔ̃tʁ\.

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 40368, this pair ranks #241,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of montaient vs montrent

Shared letters: emnot. Private to "montaient": ai. Private to "montrent": r.

"montaient" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVVCC  ·  "montrent" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • montaientmmontaient · mnotaient · monatient · monntaient · montaeint · montaiennt · montaientt · montaietn
  • montrentmmontrent · mnotrent · monntrent · monrtent · monternt · montrennt · montrentt · montretn

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "montaient" and "montrent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\mɔ̃.tɛ\ versus \mɔ̃tʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "montaient" or "montrent" show up more?
"montrent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,937 in our French list, against #37,431 for "montaient". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "montaient" and "montrent" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "montaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "montrent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #241,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "montaient" and "montrent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "montaient 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 #241,048 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