le vs len, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#2,016
“le” frequency rank: #30,622
“len” frequency rank: 32638
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	le	len
Definition	partícula gramatical usada antes de substantivos ou palavras substantivadas; por geral indica uma coisa em particular	só, apenas, somente

Letter map: le vs len

Shared letters muted; letters that set le and len apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

len

Role in the sentence - le and len

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: le is anarticle and lenanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “le” sits inside “len”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32638, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

le is recorded at frequency rank #2,016, classified as anarticle. len is at rank #30,622, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ʎen/.

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 32638, this pair ranks #35,108 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of le vs len

Shared letters: el. Private to "le": -. Private to "len": n.

"le" · 2 letters · shape CV · "len" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "le" and "len" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "le" is an article and "len" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "le" or "len" show up more?

"le" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,016 in our Portuguese list, against #30,622 for "len". 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 "le" and "len".

Full dictionary entry for "le" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "len" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #35,108 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"le" and "len" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Leben vs len". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #35,108 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.