Which to use
“él” is a pronoun and “elle” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #142
- “él” frequency rank
- #23,767
- “elle” frequency rank
- 23909
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | él | elle |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Nominativo y preposicional del pronombre personal de la tercera persona del singular en el género masculino. | Nombre del dígrafo ll. |
Where the eye mixes él and elle
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Look-alike desk: él vs elle
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: él is [ˈel] while elle is [ˈeʝe]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23909, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
él is recorded at frequency rank #142, classified as apron, pronounced [ˈel]. elle is at rank #23,767, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈeʝe].
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 23909, this pair ranks #243,605 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of él vs elle
Shared letters: l. Private to "él": é. Private to "elle": e.
"él" · 2 letters · shape VC · "elle" · 4 letters · shape VCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- elle ← elel · lele
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "él" and "elle" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "él" vs "elle" - which ranks higher?
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 "él" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "elle" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #243,605 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "él" and "elle" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "elle vs EPL". 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 #243,605 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.