Which to use
“tourna” is a verb and “tournais” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #20,304
- “tourna” frequency rank
- #49,402
- “tournais” frequency rank
- 69706
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tourna | tournais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de tourner. | Relatif au Tourne, commune française située dans le département de la Gironde. |
Where the eye mixes tourna and tournais
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. tourna runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against tournais's 8 (CVVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: tourna vs tournais
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tourna is \tuʁ.na\ while tournais is \tuʁ.nɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “tourna” sits inside “tournais”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69706, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tourna is recorded at frequency rank #20,304, classified as averb, pronounced \tuʁ.na\. tournais is at rank #49,402, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tuʁ.nɛ\.
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 69706, this pair ranks #54,131 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of tourna vs tournais
Shared letters: anortu. Private to "tourna": -. Private to "tournais": is.
"tourna" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "tournais" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "tourna" and "tournais" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "tourna" or "tournais" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "tourna" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tournais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #54,131 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tourna" and "tournais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "touchais vs tournais". 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 #54,131 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.