Which to use
“travail” is a noun and “travailla” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #194
- “travail” frequency rank
- #28,380
- “travailla” frequency rank
- 28574
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | travail | travailla |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Labeur, application à une tâche, effort soutenu pour faire quelque chose, en parlant de l’esprit comme du corps. | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de travailler. |
Where the eye mixes travail and travailla
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. travail runs 7 letters (CCVCVVC) against travailla's 9 (CCVCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between travail and travailla
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: travail is \tʁa.vaj\ while travailla is \tʁa.va.ja\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “travail” sits inside “travailla”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28574, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
travail is recorded at frequency rank #194, classified as anoun, pronounced \tʁa.vaj\. travailla is at rank #28,380, tagged as averb, pronounced \tʁa.va.ja\.
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 28574, this pair ranks #321,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of travail vs travailla
Shared letters: ailrtv. Private to "travail": -. Private to "travailla": -.
"travail" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC · "travailla" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "travail" and "travailla" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "travail" or "travailla"?
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 "travail" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "travailla" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #321,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "travail" and "travailla" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "travailla vs travaillée". 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 #321,948 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.