élvseyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: él is a pronoun, ey is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“él” is a pronoun and “ey” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#142
“él” frequency rank
#13,044
“ey” frequency rank
13186
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature él ey
Definition Nominativo y preposicional del pronombre personal de la tercera persona del singular en el género masculino. Se usa para llamar sobre sí mismo la atención de otra persona.

Where the eye mixes él and ey

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. No shared run - shape, not overlap, is the trap.

2 ch
él
2 ch
ey

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: él is [ˈel] while ey is [ˈej]. 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 (pronoun vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13186, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

él is recorded at frequency rank #142, classified as apron, pronounced [ˈel]. ey is at rank #13,044, tagged as anintj, pronounced [ˈej].

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 13186, this pair ranks #288,780 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of él vs ey

Shared letters: none. Private to "él": . Private to "ey": ey.

"él" · 2 letters · shape VC  ·  "ey" · 2 letters · shape VV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "él" and "ey" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "él" is a pronoun and "ey" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "él" or "ey"?
"él" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #142 in our Spanish list, against #13,044 for "ey". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list