A French homophone is the same thing as an English homophone: two (or more) words that sound the same when said out loud but aren’t usually spelled the same way and don’t have the same meaning. We’ve compiled 20 of the most common French homophones, even though there are tons more!
When you’re learning a new language, especially French, it can be difficult to write down certain words because orally, they could sound the same but won’t have the same meaning when said it in a certain context.
1À/a
À is a preposition, whereas a is the present tense of the verb avoir. If you’re not sure which one to use, you can always replace a with avait. Here is an example: Florence a (avait) gagné un concours (Florence won a contest). Since you can replace the a with avait in this sentence, you must use the verb avoir (a). Here’s an example of a sentence with the preposition à: Ma soeur est allée à Bali cet été (My sister went to Bali this summer). You can’t replace the à with a in this sentence.
2Ou/où
You use ou when you are expressing a choice, an opposition or an approximation. For example, Je vais manger du spaghetti ou un steak ce soir au restaurant (I will eat spaghetti or a steak tonight at the restaurant). You can replace ou by et and if it makes sense then you know you are using it properly. Où, one the other hand, is an adverb used to talk or ask about a place or time on in an interrogative sentence. Here is an example: Où vas-tu ce soir? (Where are you going tonight?).
3Tour/tour
Tour can have two meanings: either it can be a tower or it can be the act of turning. So, saying J’ai bien aimé visiter la tour du château (I really enjoyed visiting the castle’s tower) versus Je devais faire le tour de la maison pour m’assurer que toutes les fenêtres étaient verrouillées (I had to go around the whole house to make sure all the windows were locked).
