sabevssheTell them apart

Quick tell: sabe is a verb, she is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sabe” is a verb and “she” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#357
“sabe” frequency rank
#16,981
“she” frequency rank
17338
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sabe she
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de saber. Ella.

Where the eye mixes sabe and she

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
sabe
3 ch
she

Why the eye confuses sabe with she

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sabe is [ˈsaβ̞e] while she is /ʃiː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17338, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sabe is recorded at frequency rank #357, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈsaβ̞e]. she is at rank #16,981, tagged as apron, pronounced /ʃiː/.

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 17338, this pair ranks #272,567 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sabe vs she

Shared letters: es. Private to "sabe": ab. Private to "she": h.

"sabe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "she" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sabeasbe · sabbe · saeb · sbae · ssabe

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sabe" and "she" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sabe" is a verb and "she" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "sabe" or "she" show up more?
"sabe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #357 in our Spanish list, against #16,981 for "she". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sabe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "she" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #272,567 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sabe" and "she" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "she vs stem". 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 #272,567 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list