hanvsHeTell them apart

Quick tell: han is a onomatopoeia, He is a symbol, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“han” is an onomatopoeia and “He” is a symbol - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,553
“han” frequency rank
#6,510
“He” frequency rank
15063
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature han He
Definition Exclamation exprimant le cri sourd et guttural d’un homme fournissant un effort. Symbole de l’entreprise de fabrication d’avions allemande Heinkel Flugzeugwerke, fondée par Ernst Heinkel en 1922 et absorbée par Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW) en 1965.

Letter map: han vs He

Shared letters muted; letters that set han and He apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
han
2 ch
He

Part-of-speech tell for han / He

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: han is anonomatopoeia and Heasymbol. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15063, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

han is recorded at frequency rank #8,553, classified as anonomatopoeia, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɑ̃\. He is at rank #6,510, tagged as asymbol.

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 15063, this pair ranks #394,025 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of han vs He

Shared letters: h. Private to "han": an. Private to "He": e.

"han" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "He" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "han" and "He" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "han" is an onomatopoeia and "He" a symbol, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "han" or "He" show up more?
"He" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,510 in our French list, against #8,553 for "han". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "han" vs "He" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "han" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "He" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #394,025 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "han" and "He" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "han vs hash". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #394,025 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list