lvsleTell them apart

Quick tell: l is a pronoun, le is an article, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“l” is a pronoun and “le” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,147
“l” frequency rank
#2,016
“le” frequency rank
3163
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature l le
Definition o, pronome demonstrativo partícula gramatical usada antes de substantivos ou palavras substantivadas; por geral indica uma coisa em particular

Letter map: l vs le

Shared letters muted; letters that set l and le apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

1 ch
l
2 ch
le

Part-of-speech tell for l / le

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: l is apronoun and leanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “l” sits inside “le”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3163, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

l is recorded at frequency rank #1,147, classified as apron. le is at rank #2,016, tagged as anarticle.

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 3163, this pair ranks #72,031 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of l vs le

Shared letters: l. Private to "l": -. Private to "le": e.

"l" · 1 letters · shape C  ·  "le" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "l" for "le" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "l" is a pronoun and "le" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "l" vs "le" - which ranks higher?
"l" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,147 in our Portuguese list, against #2,016 for "le". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "l" and "le". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "l" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "le" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,031 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "l" and "le" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "le vs Lied". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #72,031 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