montaisvsmontaitTell them apart

Quick tell: montais is a adjective, montait is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“montais” is an adjective and “montait” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,234
“montais” frequency rank
#16,679
“montait” frequency rank
65913
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature montais montait
Definition Relatif à Mont, commune française située dans le département des Hautes-Pyrénées. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de monter.

Same sound, different letters: montais vs montait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. montais and montait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
montais
7 ch
montait

Homophone desk: montais vs montait

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: montais and montait carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mɔ̃.tɛ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - s in “montais” becomes t in “montait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65913, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

montais is recorded at frequency rank #49,234, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɔ̃.tɛ\. montait is at rank #16,679, tagged as averb, 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 65913, this pair ranks #70,199 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of montais vs montait

Shared letters: aimnot. Private to "montais": s. Private to "montait": -.

"montais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "montait" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • montaismmontais · mnotais · monatis · monntais · montaiss · montasi · montias · monttais
  • montaitmmontait · mnotait · monatit · monntait · montaitt · montati · montiat · monttait

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "montais" and "montait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "montais" is an adjective and "montait" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "montais" or "montait"?
"montait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,679 in our French list, against #49,234 for "montais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"montais" and "montait" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "montais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "montait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,199 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "montais" and "montait" 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 #70,199 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