sontvssunWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#47
“sont” frequency rank
#6,897
“sun” frequency rank
6944
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sont sun
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de être. Chanter

Letter map: sont vs sun

Shared letters muted; letters that set sont and sun apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
sont
3 ch
sun

Spelling & dictionary notes on sont vs sun

sont and sun are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6944, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sont is recorded at frequency rank #47, classified as averb, pronounced \sɔ̃\. sun is at rank #6,897, tagged as averb.

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 6944, this pair ranks #424,722 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sont vs sun

Shared letters: ns. Private to "sont": ot. Private to "sun": u.

"sont" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "sun" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sontosnt · snot · sonnt · sontt · sotn · ssont

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sont" and "sun" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary French text, does "sont" or "sun" show up more?
"sont" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #47 in our French list, against #6,897 for "sun". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "sont" vs "sun" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sont" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sun" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #424,722 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sont" and "sun" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sun vs suu". 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 #424,722 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