Which to use
“pardonné” is a verb and “personne” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #17,219
- “pardonné” frequency rank
- #149
- “personne” frequency rank
- 17368
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pardonné | personne |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé masculin singulier de pardonner. | Être humain considéré en tant qu’individu. |
Where the eye mixes pardonné and personne
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. pardonné and personne follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses pardonné with personne
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pardonné is \paʁ.dɔ.ne\ while personne is \pɛʁ.sɔn\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17368, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pardonné is recorded at frequency rank #17,219, classified as averb, pronounced \paʁ.dɔ.ne\. personne is at rank #149, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.sɔn\.
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 17368, this pair ranks #383,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of pardonné vs personne
Shared letters: nopr. Private to "pardonné": adé. Private to "personne": es.
"pardonné" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV · "personne" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- personne ← eprsonne · perosnne · perrsonne · persnone · persone · personen · perssonne · pesronne
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "pardonné" and "personne" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "pardonné" or "personne" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "pardonné" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "personne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #383,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pardonné" and "personne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pardonné vs pardonnent". 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 #383,525 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.