Li vs lui, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“Li” is a symbol and “lui” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,501
“Li” frequency rank: #68
“lui” frequency rank: 4569
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Li	lui
Definition	Symbole de Lissounov (en russe Boris Pavlovitch Lissounov, Борис Павлович Лисунов), ingénieur aéronautique soviétique qui, en collaboration avec Vladimir Miassichtchev, lança un programme de re-motorisation du Douglas DC-3 dans le but de produire une version nationale sous licence.	Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du singulier épicène du complément d’objet indirect.

Letter map: Li vs lui

Shared letters muted; letters that set Li and lui apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

lui

Role in the sentence - Li and lui

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Li is asymbol and luiapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4569, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Li is recorded at frequency rank #4,501, classified as asymbol. lui is at rank #68, tagged as apron, pronounced \lɥi\.

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 4569, this pair ranks #431,271 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Li vs lui

Shared letters: il. Private to "Li": -. Private to "lui": u.

"Li" · 2 letters · shape CV · "lui" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Li" and "lui" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Li" is a symbol and "lui" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "Li" or "lui"?

"lui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #68 in our French list, against #4,501 for "Li". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Li" and "lui".

Full dictionary entry for "Li" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #431,271 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Li" and "lui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lep vs Li". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #431,271 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.