n vs ni, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#585
“n” frequency rank: #8,234
“ni” frequency rank: 8819
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	n	ni
Definition	não	nós, pronome da segunda pessoa do plural

Letter map: n vs ni

Shared letters muted; letters that set n and ni apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

1 ch

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for n / ni

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: n is anadverb and niapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “n” sits inside “ni”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8819, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

n is recorded at frequency rank #585, classified as anadv. ni is at rank #8,234, 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 8819, this pair ranks #64,824 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of n vs ni

Shared letters: n. Private to "n": -. Private to "ni": i.

"n" · 1 letters · shape C · "ni" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "n" and "ni" be used interchangeably?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "n" or "ni" show up more?

"n" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #585 in our Portuguese list, against #8,234 for "ni". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "n" and "ni". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "n" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ni" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #64,824 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"n" and "ni" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nami vs ni". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #64,824 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.