semblavssemblaitTell them apart

Quick tell: sembla is a noun, semblait is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sembla” is a noun and “semblait” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,155
“sembla” frequency rank
#2,898
“semblait” frequency rank
39053
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sembla semblait
Definition Langue mandée parlée au Burkina Faso. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de sembler.

Letter map: sembla vs semblait

Shared letters muted; letters that set sembla and semblait apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. sembla runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against semblait's 8 (CVCCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
sembla
8 ch
semblait

Role in the sentence - sembla and semblait

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sembla is anoun and semblaitaverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “sembla” sits inside “semblait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39053, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sembla is recorded at frequency rank #36,155, classified as anoun. semblait is at rank #2,898, tagged as averb, pronounced \sɑ̃.blɛ\.

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 39053, this pair ranks #250,842 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sembla vs semblait

Shared letters: abelms. Private to "sembla": -. Private to "semblait": it.

"sembla" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "semblait" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sembla ← esmbla · sebmla · sembal · sembbla · semblla · semlba · semmbla · smebla
  • semblait ← esmblait · sebmlait · sembalit · sembblait · semblaitt · semblati · sembliat · sembllait

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sembla" and "semblait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sembla" is a noun and "semblait" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "sembla" or "semblait" show up more?
"semblait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,898 in our French list, against #36,155 for "sembla". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "sembla" and "semblait". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sembla" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "semblait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #250,842 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sembla" and "semblait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sembla vs simba". 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 #250,842 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