haovshisWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hao is a noun, his is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hao” is a noun and “his” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,588
“hao” frequency rank
#34
“his” frequency rank
31622
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hao his
Definition A former currency unit of Vietnam, worth one tenth of a dong. Belonging to him.

Letter map: hao vs his

Shared letters muted; letters that set hao and his apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
hao
3 ch
his

Role in the sentence - hao and his

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hao is anoun and hisadeterminer. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31622, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hao is recorded at frequency rank #31,588, classified as anoun. his is at rank #34, tagged as adet, pronounced /ɪ̈z/.

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 31622, this pair ranks #344,622 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hao vs his

Shared letters: h. Private to "hao": ao. Private to "his": is.

"hao" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "his" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hao" and "his" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hao" is a noun and "his" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "hao" or "his" show up more?
"his" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34 in our English list, against #31,588 for "hao". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "hao" and "his". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hao" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "his" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #344,622 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hao" and "his" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hao vs HRW". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #344,622 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list