laiavslangTell them apart

Quick tell: laia is a noun, lang is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“laia” is a noun and “lang” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,883
“laia” frequency rank
#17,555
“lang” frequency rank
55438
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature laia lang
Definition lã por

Letter map: laia vs lang

Shared letters muted; letters that set laia and lang apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. laia (CVVV) and lang (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
laia
4 ch
lang

Part-of-speech tell for laia / lang

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: laia is anoun and langanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55438, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

laia is recorded at frequency rank #37,883, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈlaj.ɐ/. lang is at rank #17,555, tagged as anadv.

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 55438, this pair ranks #10,595 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of laia vs lang

Shared letters: al. Private to "laia": i. Private to "lang": gn.

"laia" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "lang" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • laia ← alia · laai · liaa · llaia
  • lang ← alng · lagn · langg · lanng · llang · lnag

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "laia" for "lang" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "laia" is a noun and "lang" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "laia" or "lang" show up more?
"lang" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,555 in our Portuguese list, against #37,883 for "laia". 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 "laia" and "lang". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "laia" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lang" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,595 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "laia" and "lang" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laia vs liana". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #10,595 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