toivstyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: toi is a pronoun, ty is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“toi” is a pronoun and “ty” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#120
“toi” frequency rank
#21,196
“ty” frequency rank
21316
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature toi ty
Definition Pronom de la deuxième personne du singulier. Flûte chinoise.

Where the eye mixes toi and ty

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
toi
2 ch
ty

Look-alike desk: toi vs ty

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: toi is \twa\ while ty is \ti\. 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 (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21316, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

toi is recorded at frequency rank #120, classified as apron, pronounced \twa\. ty is at rank #21,196, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ti\.

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 21316, this pair ranks #363,798 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of toi vs ty

Shared letters: t. Private to "toi": io. Private to "ty": y.

"toi" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "ty" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "toi" and "ty" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "toi" is a pronoun and "ty" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "toi" or "ty" show up more?
"toi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #120 in our French list, against #21,196 for "ty". 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 "toi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #363,798 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "toi" and "ty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tif vs ty". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #363,798 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