Which to use
“travailla” and “travaillais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #28,380
- “travailla” frequency rank
- #18,090
- “travaillais” frequency rank
- 46470
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | travailla | travaillais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de travailler. | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de travailler. |
Where the eye mixes travailla and travaillais
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. travailla runs 9 letters (CCVCVVCCV) against travaillais's 11 (CCVCVVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses travailla with travaillais
A purely visual mix-up. travailla (\tʁa.va.ja\) and travaillais (\tʁa.va.jɛ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “travailla” sits inside “travaillais”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46470, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
travailla is recorded at frequency rank #28,380, classified as averb, pronounced \tʁa.va.ja\. travaillais is at rank #18,090, tagged as averb, pronounced \tʁa.va.jɛ\.
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 46470, this pair ranks #194,673 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of travailla vs travaillais
Shared letters: ailrtv. Private to "travailla": -. Private to "travaillais": s.
"travailla" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVVCCV · "travaillais" · 11 letters · shape CCVCVVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- travailla ← rtavailla · tarvailla · traavilla · travaila · travailal · travalila · travialla · travvailla
- travaillais ← rtavaillais · tarvaillais · traavillais · travailais · travailalis · travaillaiss · travaillasi · travaillias
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "travailla" and "travaillais" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "travailla" or "travaillais" show up more?
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 "travailla" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "travaillais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #194,673 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "travailla" and "travaillais" 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 #194,673 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.