ma vs my, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ma” is a contraction and “my” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,420
“ma” frequency rank: #1,440
“my” frequency rank: 4860
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ma	my
Definition	contração do pronome pessoal do caso oblíquo me e a	nós

Letter map: ma vs my

Shared letters muted; letters that set ma and my apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

Grammar separator: ma vs my

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ma is acontraction and myapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “ma” becomes y in “my”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4860, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ma is recorded at frequency rank #3,420, classified as acontraction, pronounced /mɐ/. my is at rank #1,440, tagged as apron.

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 4860, this pair ranks #69,901 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ma vs my

Shared letters: m. Private to "ma": a. Private to "my": y.

"ma" · 2 letters · shape CV · "my" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ma" and "my" be used interchangeably?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ma" or "my" show up more?

"my" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,440 in our Portuguese list, against #3,420 for "ma". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "ma" and "my". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "ma" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "my" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #69,901 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ma" and "my" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ma vs maa". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #69,901 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.