mal vs my, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#319
“mal” frequency rank: #1,440
“my” frequency rank: 1759
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	mal	my
Definition	de forma pouco satisfatória	nós

Letter map: mal vs my

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

3 ch

mal

2 ch

Role in the sentence - mal and my

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mal is anadverb and myapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1759, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mal is recorded at frequency rank #319, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈmaw/. 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 1759, this pair ranks #73,748 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mal vs my

Shared letters: m. Private to "mal": al. Private to "my": y.

"mal" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "my" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mal" and "my" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Which is more common, "mal" or "my"?

"mal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #319 in our Portuguese list, against #1,440 for "my". 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 "mal" and "my". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "mal" 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 #73,748 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"mal" and "my" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs my". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #73,748 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.