im vs it, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“im” is a verb and “it” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,077
“im” frequency rank: #1,934
“it” frequency rank: 14011
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	im	it
Definition	sou;	caso nominativo da terceira pessoa neutra do singular, ele, ela, ile

Letter map: im vs it

Shared letters muted; letters that set im and it apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

Role in the sentence - im and it

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: im is averb and itapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - m in “im” becomes t in “it”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14011, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

im is recorded at frequency rank #12,077, classified as averb. it is at rank #1,934, tagged as apron, pronounced /ɪt/.

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 14011, this pair ranks #58,187 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of im vs it

Shared letters: i. Private to "im": m. Private to "it": t.

"im" · 2 letters · shape VC · "it" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "im" for "it" ever safe?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "im" or "it" show up more?

"it" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,934 in our Portuguese list, against #12,077 for "im". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "im" and "it".

Full dictionary entry for "im" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "it" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #58,187 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"im" and "it" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "im vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #58,187 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.