sondésvssongezTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#28,354
“sondés” frequency rank
#31,742
“songez” frequency rank
60096
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sondés songez
Definition Pluriel de sondé. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de songer.

Where the eye mixes sondés and songez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. sondés and songez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
sondés
6 ch
songez

Why the eye confuses sondés with songez

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sondés is \sɔ̃.de\ while songez is \sɔ̃.ʒe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60096, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sondés is recorded at frequency rank #28,354, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɔ̃.de\. songez is at rank #31,742, tagged as averb, pronounced \sɔ̃.ʒe\.

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 60096, this pair ranks #99,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sondés vs songez

Shared letters: nos. Private to "sondés": dé. Private to "songez": egz.

"sondés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "songez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • songez ← osngez · snogez · sognez · sonegz · songezz · songgez · songze · sonngez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sondés" for "songez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sondés" is a noun and "songez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "sondés" or "songez" show up more?
"sondés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,354 in our French list, against #31,742 for "songez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sondés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "songez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #99,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sondés" and "songez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs sondés". 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 #99,480 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