person vs personal, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“person” is a noun and “personal” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,504
“person” frequency rank: #422
“personal” frequency rank: 28926
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	person	personal
Definition	Persona.	Propio de o relacionado con la persona.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set person and personal apart are highlighted. They share 6 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch

person

8 ch

personal

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: person is /ˈpɜː.sən/ while personal is [peɾsoˈnal]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “person” sits inside “personal”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28926, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

person is recorded at frequency rank #28,504, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɜː.sən/. personal is at rank #422, tagged as anadj, pronounced [peɾsoˈnal].

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 28926, this pair ranks #219,540 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of person vs personal

Shared letters: enoprs. Private to "person": -. Private to "personal": al.

"person" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "personal" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

person ← eprson · perosn · perrson · persno · personn · persson · pesron · pperson
personal ← eprsonal · perosnal · perrsonal · persnoal · persoanl · personall · personla · personnal

Frequency comparison

person#28,504

personal#422

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "person" and "personal" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "person" is a noun and "personal" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "person" or "personal"?

"personal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #422 in our Spanish list, against #28,504 for "person". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering person vs personal

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “person”; for an adjective, it's “personal”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “person” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable