Grammar Mastery · Trainer · P.A.I.R.E.

Confusions — 40 pairs of French words that look alike

Pairs 40 Questions 320 Writing tasks 120 Categories 8 Level A2 → B2

What this trains: reading je viens de terminer and choosing between venir = to come and venir de + verb = to have just done — in the time you have while reading. Each pair is drilled against its own twin, never on its own, and the wrong answer in every question is the other member of the pair.

📘 Order of work: Diagnostic first — the pairs you miss become your queue. Then each pair through Piège → Face-à-face → Drill → Production. The Journal shows which pairs are due and which way you swapped them. Your answers, your own trigger questions and your queue are saved in this browser.

How this page works

You read je viens de terminer and understood venir = to come.
The missing piece was not the word — you knew venir.
It was the choice between two readings of the same opening, which has to happen while you are still reading the sentence.

The five steps below train that choice. Each one has its own tab on this page.

First: which kind of confusion is it?

Three different problems hide behind “words I mix up”, and each one needs a different fix. Every pair on this page is labelled with its kind.

Kind	Example	What actually went wrong	What fixes it
form	ils sont / ils ont serai / serais	You cannot hear or see the difference at speed.	Noticing. Explaining the meaning changes nothing here.
structure	venir de + verb / + noun penser à / penser de	You read the word and stopped. You never read the slot after it.	Training your eye to look one word further.
concept	savoir / connaître an / année	English gives you one box where French needs two.	Splitting the English word, then a sorting question.

The five steps

P — answer before the explanation

You answer the question first, with nothing explained beforehand. Getting it wrong is expected and is how the pair enters your queue. The explanation and both frames appear only after you have chosen. This is the Piège tab.

A — never look at one alone

Learning the two members in separate sittings leaves you with two separate facts and no way to tell them apart inside a sentence. Both appear side by side here, in the same sentence shape, with one thing different:

venir de + verb

Je viens de manger.

I have just eaten.

venir de + place

Je viens de Paris.

I come from Paris.

Only the slot after de changes: an infinitive on the left, a place name on the right.

I — one question that decides it

Every pair has a single short question you ask the sentence, seven words at most:

After « de » — a verb or a noun?

In the Face-à-face tab you rewrite that question in your own words and the page saves your version. Use whatever wording you would actually think in, including your first language.

R — write both, about your own life

Choosing between two buttons tests recognition. Producing the form yourself is a different skill.
In the Production tab you write one sentence for each member, one after the other, about your own life so the sentence is true.
A pair does not count as finished until both are written.

E — spaced, and mixed up

Each pair comes back after 1 day, then 3, 7, 21, 60, always shuffled in with unrelated pairs rather than drilled in a block. Two rules apply on top of the intervals:

→ A miss sends both members back to the start. They travel together.
→ The Journal records which way you swapped them, not just that you were wrong. The direction tells you which one is invisible to you.

The rules this page runs on

1. No pair is ever shown alone.

2. The wrong option is always the twin — never an unrelated third answer.

3. Never single words, always a full sentence. venir de = to have just gives you nothing to read against.

4. Speed is the last test, not the first. Right but slow means you are still translating in your head.

5. Only pairs you got wrong are drilled. The Diagnostic sets the list.

When is a pair finished?

A pair counts as mastered only when all three are true:

8 correct in a row, each answered in under 3 seconds

both members written correctly in your own free sentences

done on two sessions at least a week apart

Anything less counts as in progress, and the pair stays in the queue. The Journal shows which of the three conditions each pair still has open.

The eight categories

The 40 pairs are grouped by what you have to decide, not by level or by letter.
Every pair inside a category is settled by the same question, so once that question is automatic the whole category follows.
Work one category at a time and finish it before opening the next.

Verb + à / de

structure5 pairs

Decided by: what stands after the little word.

The verb itself is not the problem — you know penser, jouer, venir.
What changes the meaning is the word glued behind it and what that word introduces.
Je viens de Paris is a place; je viens de partir is a verb, and the whole sentence now describes time, not movement.
Read one word past the verb before you decide anything.

Pair	The question that decides it
venir de + infinitif / venir de + nom / lieu	After « de » — a verb or a noun?
penser à / penser de	Thinking, or judging?
jouer à / jouer de	A game, or an instrument?
parler à / parler de	The listener, or the topic?
servir à / se servir de	A purpose, or a person using it?

The same verb with se

structure5 pairs

Decided by: whether the action lands on someone else or back on the subject.

Adding se does not make a polite or reflexive version of the verb — it produces a different verb with a different meaning.
Attendre is to wait for something; s’attendre à is to expect it.
Demander is to ask someone; se demander is to wonder.
Treat the two as unrelated entries and learn them apart.

Pair	The question that decides it
attendre / s’attendre à	Waiting for it, or expecting it?
passer / se passer	Someone spending time, or something happening?
rendre / se rendre compte de / que	Give something back, or realize something?
demander / se demander	Asking someone, or asking yourself?
tromper / se tromper	Deceiving someone, or making a mistake?

Coming and going

concept5 pairs

Decided by: whether the movement ends where you are or away from you.

French marks the direction of the movement inside the verb, where English uses the same verb and lets the situation explain it.
Amener brings a person to where you are, emmener takes them away with you.
Before choosing, fix the position of the speaker, then ask which way the person or thing is travelling relative to that point.

Pair	The question that decides it
amener / emmener	Bringing them here, or taking them away?
apporter / emporter	Does the thing arrive here or leave?
retourner / revenir	Back to there, or back to here?
quitter / partir	Is there an object after the verb?
visiter / rendre visite à	A place, or a person?

One English word, two French verbs

concept5 pairs

Decided by: what kind of object it is, or whether you chose it.

English gives you one box where French keeps two, so translation cannot settle these.
Savoir takes facts and skills, connaître takes people and places you are acquainted with.
Entendre is sound arriving at your ear, écouter is you turning towards it.
The choice is decided by the object or by whether the act was deliberate.

Pair	The question that decides it
savoir / connaître	A fact, or an acquaintance?
entendre / écouter	Sound arrives, or you choose it?
voir / regarder	Did your eyes choose it?
habiter / vivre	An address, or a life?
savoir + infinitif / pouvoir + infinitif	A learned skill, or circumstances?

Time

concept5 pairs

Decided by: counting a unit, or living through it.

Two separate questions run through this group. First, an/jour count units while année/journée describe the stretch you spent inside one — which is why deux ans is a number and une bonne journée is an experience.
Second, depuis, pendant, il y a and dans place the time relative to now: still running, finished, behind you, ahead of you.

Pair	The question that decides it
an / année	Counting years, or describing one?
jour / journée	Counting days, or living one?
temps / fois	How much, or how many?
depuis / pendant	Still going, or already over?
il y a / dans	Backwards or forwards from now?

Describing and counting

concept5 pairs

Decided by: whether you are describing a noun or a verb.

An adjective attaches to a noun and agrees with it; an adverb attaches to a verb and never changes.
Un bon repas describes the meal, je mange bien describes the eating.
The same split runs through meilleur/mieux and très/beaucoup.
Find the word being modified first, then the form follows from it.

Pair	The question that decides it
bon / bonne / bons / bonnes / bien	Describing a noun, or a verb?
meilleur / meilleure / mieux	A better thing, or a better action?
très + adjectif / adverbe / beaucoup (+ de + nom)	Stretching a quality, or counting?
oui / si	Was the question negative?
un nombre / un numéro	How many, or which one?

Small words standing for a noun

structure5 pairs

Decided by: which preposition the noun left behind.

These words replace something already said, so the choice depends on the slot the noun came out of, not on its meaning.
A noun introduced by à comes back as y; one introduced by de comes back as en.
The same logic decides lui against le, and qui against que.
Rebuild the full sentence in your head, look at what preceded the noun, then pick.

Pair	The question that decides it
y / en	Is the missing word à or de?
lui / leur / le / la / les	Do you give it TO them?
qui / que	Does a verb come right after?
dont / où	Place or time, or de something?
c’est / il est / elle est	Is there an article after it?

Sound and spelling

form5 pairs

Decided by: one sound, or one letter.

Nothing here is conceptual — the two members mean obviously different things and you would never confuse them on paper with time to think.
They collide because they sound the same or nearly so: ils sont against ils ont is a single /z/, serai against serais is a vowel, ces against ses is one letter.
Practise these by ear and by dictation; explaining the meaning changes nothing.

Pair	The question that decides it
ils sont /sɔ̃/ / ils ont /zɔ̃/	Do you hear a /z/?
je serai / je serais	A firm plan, or a hypothesis?
dessus / au-dessus de / dessous / au-dessous de	Above it, or under it?
ces / ses	Pointing, or owning?
plus /ply/, final -s silent / plus /plys/, final -s sounded	Do you sound the final -s?

Working order

The order above runs from the pairs that change the meaning of a whole sentence down to the ones that change only a sound. Take them in that order unless the Diagnostic sends you elsewhere.

Step	What you do
Open a category	Diagnostic filtered to that category. Only the pairs you miss go into your queue.
Per pair	Piège cold, then Face-à-face to write the deciding question in your own words, then Drill against the 3-second target, then Production for one sentence per member.
Three at a time	Three new pairs open at once, no more. Past that they interfere with each other and with the pairs already in your queue.
Interleave	Once a category is open, Drill mixes its pairs with due pairs from earlier categories. A category is never drilled as a block.
Close a category	All five pairs mastered by the test above. Anything the Journal shows swapped twice goes back to the start of its queue.

form pairs are the exception to the order. They are decided by ear, not by reading, so drill them out loud and with dictation whenever they come up rather than saving them for their own turn.

Face-à-face — both members, one screen

All 40 pairs. Each one shows the two members in the same sentence shape so the single difference is visible, the question that decides it, and a box where you rewrite that question in your own words — the page keeps your version.
Filter by kind or by category.

French With Guri · Grammar Mastery · Confusions · 40 pairs in 8 groups · 320 forced-choice questions · English explanations, French practice.

How this page works

First: which kind of confusion is it?

The five steps

P — answer before the explanation

A — never look at one alone

I — one question that decides it

R — write both, about your own life

E — spaced, and mixed up

The rules this page runs on

When is a pair finished?

The eight categories

Verb + à / de

The same verb with se

Coming and going

One English word, two French verbs

Time

Describing and counting

Small words standing for a noun

Sound and spelling

Working order

Face-à-face — both members, one screen

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