afegãovsalemãoTell them apart

Which to use

“afegão” and “alemão” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#28,430
“afegão” frequency rank
#2,348
“alemão” frequency rank
30778
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature afegão alemão
Definition de ou relativo ao Afeganistão, país asiático natural da Alemanha

Where the eye mixes afegão and alemão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. afegão and alemão follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
afegão
6 ch
alemão

Look-alike desk: afegão vs alemão

A purely visual mix-up. afegão (/a.feˈɡɐ̃w̃/ [a.feˈɡɐ̃ʊ̯̃]) and alemão (/a.le.ˈmãw/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30778, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

afegão is recorded at frequency rank #28,430, classified as anadj, pronounced /a.feˈɡɐ̃w̃/ [a.feˈɡɐ̃ʊ̯̃]. alemão is at rank #2,348, tagged as anadj, pronounced /a.le.ˈmãw/.

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 30778, this pair ranks #37,483 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of afegão vs alemão

Shared letters: aeoã. Private to "afegão": fg. Private to "alemão": lm.

"afegão" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV  ·  "alemão" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "afegão" and "alemão" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/a.feˈɡɐ̃w̃/ [a.feˈɡɐ̃ʊ̯̃] versus /a.le.ˈmãw/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "afegão" or "alemão"?
"alemão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,348 in our Portuguese list, against #28,430 for "afegão". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "afegão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "alemão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,483 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "afegão" and "alemão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afegão vs alegro". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #37,483 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list