rendaisvsrendaitTell them apart

Which to use

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

#30,775
“rendais” frequency rank
#8,028
“rendait” frequency rank
38803
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rendais rendait
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de rendre. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de rendre.

Same sound, different letters: rendais vs rendait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. rendais and rendait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
rendais
7 ch
rendait

Ear matches; page differs - rendais and rendait

This is the hard kind. rendais and rendait are pronounced identically (\ʁɑ̃.dɛ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - s in “rendais” becomes t in “rendait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38803, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rendais is recorded at frequency rank #30,775, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁɑ̃.dɛ\. rendait is at rank #8,028, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁɑ̃.dɛ\.

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 38803, this pair ranks #252,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rendais vs rendait

Shared letters: adeinr. Private to "rendais": s. Private to "rendait": t.

"rendais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "rendait" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rendais ← erndais · rednais · renadis · rendaiss · rendasi · renddais · rendias · renndais
  • rendait ← erndait · rednait · renadit · rendaitt · rendati · renddait · rendiat · renndait

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "rendais" and "rendait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʁɑ̃.dɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "rendais" or "rendait" show up more?
"rendait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,028 in our French list, against #30,775 for "rendais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "rendais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rendait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #252,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rendais" and "rendait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rendais vs Resnais". 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 #252,685 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