see vs sí, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“see” is a verb and “sí” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,071
“see” frequency rank: #146
“sí” frequency rank: 10217
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	see	sí
Definition	Ver.	Palabra usada para expresar afirmación.

Same sound, different letters: see vs sí

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 1 letter.

3 ch

see

2 ch

sí

Homophone desk: see vs sí

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: see and sí carry the same recorded pronunciation, /siː/. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadverb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10217, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

see is recorded at frequency rank #10,071, classified as averb, pronounced /siː/. sí is at rank #146, tagged as anadv, pronounced [ˈsi].

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 10217, this pair ranks #299,420 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of see vs sí

Shared letters: s. Private to "see": e. Private to "sí": í.

"see" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "sí" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "see" and "sí" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "see" is a verb and "sí" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Spanish text, does "see" or "sí" show up more?

"sí" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #146 in our Spanish list, against #10,071 for "see". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "see" / "sí". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

Full dictionary entry for "see" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "sí" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #299,420 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"see" and "sí" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "see vs stem". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #299,420 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.