nadavsnamiTell them apart

Quick tell: nada is a adverb, nami is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#92
“nada” frequency rank
#44,009
“nami” frequency rank
44101
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nada nami
Definition não caso instrumental do pronome pessoal my

Letter map: nada vs nami

Shared letters muted; letters that set nada and nami apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. nada and nami follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
nada
4 ch
nami

Role in the sentence - nada and nami

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nada is anadverb and namiapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44101, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nada is recorded at frequency rank #92, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈna.də/. nami is at rank #44,009, 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 44101, this pair ranks #21,439 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nada vs nami

Shared letters: an. Private to "nada": d. Private to "nami": im.

"nada" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "nami" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nada ← naad · nadda · ndaa · nnada
  • nami ← anmi · naim · nammi · nmai · nnami

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nada" and "nami" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nada" is an adverb and "nami" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "nada" or "nami"?
"nada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #92 in our Portuguese list, against #44,009 for "nami". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "nada" vs "nami" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nami" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,439 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nada" and "nami" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nadie vs nami". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #21,439 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