Which to use
“say” is a verb and “sie” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #12,786
- “say” frequency rank
- #18
- “sie” frequency rank
- 12804
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | say | sie |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | sagen | Personalpronomen 3. Person Femininum Singular, welches eine zuvor benutzte Nominalphrase im Femininum (Person, Tier, Sache oder Abstraktum) ersetzt oder bei fehlendem oder weit entferntem Bezugswort auf eine Person weiblichen natürlichen Geschlechts verweist |
Where the eye mixes say and sie
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Visual trap between say and sie
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: say is [seɪ] while sie is [ziː]. 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 (verb vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12804, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
say is recorded at frequency rank #12,786, classified as averb, pronounced [seɪ]. sie is at rank #18, tagged as apron, pronounced [ziː].
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 12804, this pair ranks #1,961,958 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of say vs sie
Shared letters: s. Private to "say": ay. Private to "sie": ei.
"say" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "sie" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "say" and "sie" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary German text, does "say" or "sie" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "say" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,961,958 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "say" and "sie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "say vs seg". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #1,961,958 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.