talkvstauxWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#12,490
“talk” frequency rank
#779
“taux” frequency rank
13269
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature talk taux
Definition Talk-show : débat télévisuel ou radiophonique. Prix, montant, tarif fixé par l'État.

Where the eye mixes talk and taux

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
talk
4 ch
taux

Visual trap between talk and taux

A purely visual mix-up. talk (\tok\) and taux (\to\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13269, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

talk is recorded at frequency rank #12,490, classified as anoun, pronounced \tok\. taux is at rank #779, tagged as anoun, pronounced \to\.

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 13269, this pair ranks #401,729 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of talk vs taux

Shared letters: at. Private to "talk": kl. Private to "taux": ux.

"talk" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "taux" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • talkatlk · takl · talkk · tallk · tlak · ttalk
  • tauxatux · tauxx · taxu · ttaux · tuax

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "talk" for "taux" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\tok\ versus \to\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "talk" or "taux"?
"taux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #779 in our French list, against #12,490 for "talk". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "talk" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "taux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #401,729 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "talk" and "taux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tak vs talk". 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 #401,729 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