amvsaufWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: am is a article, auf is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“am” is an article and “auf” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,705
“am” frequency rank
#42,318
“auf” frequency rank
45023
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature am auf
Definition o / a usado com substantivos masculinos no caso nominativo singular quando a palavra começar com as letra b, f, m, p aberto

Letter map: am vs auf

Shared letters muted; letters that set am and auf apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch
am
3 ch
auf

Part-of-speech tell for am / auf

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: am is anarticle and aufanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45023, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

am is recorded at frequency rank #2,705, classified as anarticle. auf is at rank #42,318, tagged as anadv, pronounced /aʊ̯f/.

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 45023, this pair ranks #20,406 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of am vs auf

Shared letters: a. Private to "am": m. Private to "auf": fu.

"am" · 2 letters · shape VC  ·  "auf" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "am" and "auf" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "am" is an article and "auf" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "am" vs "auf" - which ranks higher?
"am" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,705 in our Portuguese list, against #42,318 for "auf". 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 "am" and "auf".

  • Full dictionary entry for "am" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "auf" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,406 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "am" and "auf" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs auf". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #20,406 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