na vs nn, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“na” is a contraction and “nn” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17
“na” frequency rank: #37,935
“nn” frequency rank: 37952
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	na	nn
Definition	contração da preposição em com o artigo definido a:	não

Letter map: na vs nn

Shared letters muted; letters that set na and nn apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

Role in the sentence - na and nn

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: na is acontraction and nnanadverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “na” becomes n in “nn”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37952, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

na is recorded at frequency rank #17, classified as acontraction, pronounced /nɐ/. nn is at rank #37,935, tagged as anadv.

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 37952, this pair ranks #28,582 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of na vs nn

Shared letters: n. Private to "na": a. Private to "nn": -.

"na" · 2 letters · shape CV · "nn" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "na" for "nn" ever safe?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "na" or "nn" show up more?

"na" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17 in our Portuguese list, against #37,935 for "nn". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "na" and "nn".

Full dictionary entry for "na" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "nn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #28,582 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"na" and "nn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nn vs noon". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #28,582 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.