Which to use
“portable” and “postale” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,537
- “portable” frequency rank
- #10,553
- “postale” frequency rank
- 13090
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | portable | postale |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Que l’on peut porter et déplacer facilement. | Féminin singulier de postal. |
Where the eye mixes portable and postale
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between portable and postale
A purely visual mix-up. portable (\pɔʁ.tabl\) and postale (\pɔs.tal\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13090, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
portable is recorded at frequency rank #2,537, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɔʁ.tabl\. postale is at rank #10,553, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɔs.tal\.
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 13090, this pair ranks #402,486 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of portable vs postale
Shared letters: aelopt. Private to "portable": br. Private to "postale": s.
"portable" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV · "postale" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "portable" and "postale" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "portable" vs "postale" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "portable" and "postale" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "portable" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "postale" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #402,486 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "portable" and "postale" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "portable vs portante". 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 #402,486 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.