que vs qui, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#4
“que” frequency rank: #9,094
“qui” frequency rank: 9098
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	que	qui
Definition	quanto, quão grande, qual de	que relativo; o qual, a qual, os quais, as quais

Where the eye mixes que and qui

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch

que

3 ch

qui

Visual trap between que and qui

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: que is /ˈkɨ/ while qui is /Ki/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “que” becomes i in “qui”, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9098, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

que is recorded at frequency rank #4, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈkɨ/. qui is at rank #9,094, tagged as apron, pronounced /Ki/.

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 9098, this pair ranks #64,453 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of que vs qui

Shared letters: qu. Private to "que": e. Private to "qui": i.

"que" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "qui" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "que" for "qui" ever safe?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "que" or "qui" show up more?

"que" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4 in our Portuguese list, against #9,094 for "qui". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "que" and "qui" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

Full dictionary entry for "que" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "qui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #64,453 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"que" and "qui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "qui vs quit". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #64,453 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.