parlesvspavéesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: parles is a verb, pavées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#1,750
“parles” frequency rank
#41,952
“pavées” frequency rank
43702
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature parles pavées
Definition Deuxième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de parler. Féminin pluriel de pavé.

Where the eye mixes parles and pavées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
parles
6 ch
pavées

Why the eye confuses parles with pavées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: parles is \paʁl\ while pavées is \pa.ve\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43702, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

parles is recorded at frequency rank #1,750, classified as averb, pronounced \paʁl\. pavées is at rank #41,952, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pa.ve\.

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 43702, this pair ranks #216,092 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of parles vs pavées

Shared letters: aeps. Private to "parles": lr. Private to "pavées": .

"parles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "pavées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • parlesaprles · palres · parels · parless · parlles · parlse · parrles · pparles

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "parles" for "pavées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "parles" is a verb and "pavées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "parles" vs "pavées" - which ranks higher?
"parles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,750 in our French list, against #41,952 for "pavées". 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 "parles" and "pavées" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "parles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pavées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #216,092 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "parles" and "pavées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pactes vs pavées". 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 #216,092 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