len vs lhe, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#30,622
“len” frequency rank: #322
“lhe” frequency rank: 30944
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	len	lhe
Definition	só, apenas, somente	pronome pessoal dativo, de dois gêneros, da terceira pessoa do singular (ele, ela, você)

Where the eye mixes len and lhe

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch

len

3 ch

lhe

Why the eye confuses len with lhe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: len is /ʎen/ while lhe is /ʎɨ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30944, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

len is recorded at frequency rank #30,622, classified as anadv, pronounced /ʎen/. lhe is at rank #322, tagged as apron, pronounced /ʎɨ/.

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 30944, this pair ranks #37,288 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of len vs lhe

Shared letters: el. Private to "len": n. Private to "lhe": h.

"len" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "lhe" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "len" and "lhe" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

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

"lhe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #322 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.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "len" and "lhe" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

Full dictionary entry for "len" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lhe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #37,288 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"len" and "lhe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Leben vs len". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #37,288 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.