Which to use
“tournais” is an adjective and “tournons” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,402
- “tournais” frequency rank
- #45,351
- “tournons” frequency rank
- 94753
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tournais | tournons |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Relatif au Tourne, commune française située dans le département de la Gironde. | Première personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de tourner. |
Where the eye mixes tournais and tournons
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. tournais (CVVCCVVC) and tournons (CVVCCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between tournais and tournons
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tournais is \tuʁ.nɛ\ while tournons is \tuʁ.nɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 94753, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tournais is recorded at frequency rank #49,402, classified as anadj, pronounced \tuʁ.nɛ\. tournons is at rank #45,351, tagged as averb, pronounced \tuʁ.nɔ̃\.
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 94753, this pair ranks #1,441 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of tournais vs tournons
Shared letters: norstu. Private to "tournais": ai. Private to "tournons": -.
"tournais" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC · "tournons" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "tournais" for "tournons" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "tournais" or "tournons" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "tournais" and "tournons" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "tournais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tournons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,441 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tournais" and "tournons" 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 #1,441 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.