saisvssiWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sais is a noun, si is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sais” is a noun and “si” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,150
“sais” frequency rank
#482
“si” frequency rank
11632
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sais si
Definition substâncias voláteis dadas a uma pessoa desmaiada para fazer com que ela acorde refere-se à terceira pessoa, indica reflexividade e é usado após preposição (a, de, em, contra, sobre, por, etc., exceto com)

Letter map: sais vs si

Shared letters muted; letters that set sais and si apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
sais
2 ch
si

Part-of-speech tell for sais / si

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sais is anoun and siapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11632, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sais is recorded at frequency rank #11,150, classified as anoun. si is at rank #482, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈsi/.

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 11632, this pair ranks #61,178 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sais vs si

Shared letters: is. Private to "sais": a. Private to "si": -.

"sais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "si" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • saissaiss · sasi · sias · ssais

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sais" and "si" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sais" is a noun and "si" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sais" or "si"?
"si" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #482 in our Portuguese list, against #11,150 for "sais". 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 "sais" and "si".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "si" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,178 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sais" and "si" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sais vs Sau". 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 #61,178 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