MaivsmenWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Mai is a noun, men is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Mai” is a noun and “men” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,369
“Mai” frequency rank
#6,318
“men” frequency rank
15687
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mai men
Definition maio pronome indefinido da terceira pessoa do singular, equivalente à partícula "se"

Letter map: Mai vs men

Shared letters muted; letters that set Mai and men apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
Mai
3 ch
men

Part-of-speech tell for Mai / men

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Mai is anoun and menapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15687, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mai is recorded at frequency rank #9,369, classified as anoun, pronounced /maɪ̯/. men is at rank #6,318, 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 15687, this pair ranks #56,069 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Mai vs men

Shared letters: m. Private to "Mai": ai. Private to "men": en.

"Mai" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "men" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Mai" and "men" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Mai" is a noun and "men" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Mai" or "men"?
"men" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,318 in our Portuguese list, against #9,369 for "Mai". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Mai" and "men".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "men" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #56,069 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mai" and "men" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs Mai". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #56,069 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