postalesvspostéesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#16,212
“postales” frequency rank
#29,919
“postées” frequency rank
46131
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature postales postées
Definition Féminin pluriel de postal. Féminin pluriel de posté.

Where the eye mixes postales and postées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

8 ch
postales
7 ch
postées

Why the eye confuses postales with postées

A purely visual mix-up. postales (\pɔs.tal\) and postées (\pɔs.te\) 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 46131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

postales is recorded at frequency rank #16,212, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɔs.tal\. postées is at rank #29,919, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɔs.te\.

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 46131, this pair ranks #197,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of postales vs postées

Shared letters: eopst. Private to "postales": al. Private to "postées": é.

"postales" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "postées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • postalesopstales · posatles · posstales · postaels · postaless · postalles · postalse · postlaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "postales" and "postées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɔs.tal\ versus \pɔs.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "postales" or "postées"?
"postales" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,212 in our French list, against #29,919 for "postées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "postales" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "postées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #197,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "postales" and "postées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "postées vs postier". 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 #197,365 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