personnellevspersonnellesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,489
“personnelle” frequency rank
#3,953
“personnelles” frequency rank
6442
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature personnelle personnelles
Definition Féminin singulier de personnel. Féminin pluriel de personnel.

Same sound, different letters: personnelle vs personnelles

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 11 letters. personnelle runs 11 letters (CVCCVCCVCCV) against personnelles's 12 (CVCCVCCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

11 ch
personnelle
12 ch
personnelles

Homophone desk: personnelle vs personnelles

This is the hard kind. personnelle and personnelles are pronounced identically (\pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “personnelle” sits inside “personnelles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6442, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

personnelle is recorded at frequency rank #2,489, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\. personnelles is at rank #3,953, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\.

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 6442, this pair ranks #426,201 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of personnelle vs personnelles

Shared letters: elnoprs. Private to "personnelle": -. Private to "personnelles": -.

"personnelle" · 11 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCCV  ·  "personnelles" · 12 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • personnelleeprsonnelle · perosnnelle · perrsonnelle · persnonelle · personelle · personenlle · personnele · personnelel
  • personnelleseprsonnelles · perosnnelles · perrsonnelles · persnonelles · personelles · personenlles · personnelels · personneles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "personnelle" and "personnelles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "personnelle" vs "personnelles" - which ranks higher?
"personnelle" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,489 in our French list, against #3,953 for "personnelles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "personnelle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "personnelles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #426,201 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "personnelle" and "personnelles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "personnelles vs personnels". 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 #426,201 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