são vs se, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“são” is an adjective and “se” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34
“são” frequency rank: #16
“se” frequency rank: 50
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	são	se
Definition	saudável	indica hipótese

Where the eye mixes são and se

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

são

2 ch

Why the eye confuses são with se

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: são is /ˈsɐ̃w̃/ while se is /sɨ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs conjunction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

são is recorded at frequency rank #34, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɐ̃w̃/. se is at rank #16, tagged as aconj, pronounced /sɨ/.

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 50, this pair ranks #75,602 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of são vs se

Shared letters: s. Private to "são": oã. Private to "se": e.

"são" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "se" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "são" and "se" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "são" is an adjective and "se" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "são" or "se" show up more?

"se" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16 in our Portuguese list, against #34 for "são". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "são" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "se" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #75,602 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"são" and "se" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "são vs soap". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #75,602 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.