Which to use
“portaient” is a verb and “portais” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,459
- “portaient” frequency rank
- #26,136
- “portais” frequency rank
- 37595
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | portaient | portais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de porter. | Relatif au Port, commune française située dans le département de l’Ariège. |
Same sound, different letters: portaient vs portais
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - portaient and portais
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: portaient and portais carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pɔʁ.tɛ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37595, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
portaient is recorded at frequency rank #11,459, classified as averb, pronounced \pɔʁ.tɛ\. portais is at rank #26,136, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɔʁ.tɛ\.
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 37595, this pair ranks #261,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of portaient vs portais
Shared letters: aioprt. Private to "portaient": en. Private to "portais": s.
"portaient" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVVCC · "portais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "portaient" for "portais" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "portaient" or "portais" show up more?
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 "portaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "portais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #261,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "portaient" and "portais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pertuis vs portais". 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 #261,380 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.