montaisvsmontonsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#49,234
“montais” frequency rank
#46,304
“montons” frequency rank
95538
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature montais montons
Definition Relatif à Mont, commune française située dans le département des Hautes-Pyrénées. Première personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de monter.

Where the eye mixes montais and montons

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. montais (CVCCVVC) and montons (CVCCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
montais
7 ch
montons

Look-alike desk: montais vs montons

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: montais is \mɔ̃.tɛ\ while montons is \mɔ̃.tɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 95538, 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\. montons is at rank #46,304, tagged as averb, pronounced \mɔ̃.tɔ̃\.

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 95538, this pair ranks #1,056 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of montais vs montons

Shared letters: mnost. Private to "montais": ai. Private to "montons": -.

"montais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "montons" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • montaismmontais · mnotais · monatis · monntais · montaiss · montasi · montias · monttais
  • montonsmmontons · mnotons · monntons · monotns · montnos · montonns · montonss · montosn

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "montais" and "montons" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "montais" is an adjective and "montons" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "montais" or "montons" show up more?
"montons" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #46,304 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "montais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "montons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,056 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "montais" and "montons" 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 #1,056 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