seivssieWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: sei is a intj, sie is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sei” is an intj and “sie” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#118
“sei” frequency rank
#40,788
“sie” frequency rank
40906
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sei sie
Definition expressa que aquilo ouvido que foi dito ou afirmado por alguém não é tomado como sendo a verdade ela, pronome pessoal feminino do caso nominativo da terceira pessoa do singular:

Letter map: sei vs sie

Shared letters muted; letters that set sei and sie apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
sei
3 ch
sie

Role in the sentence - sei and sie

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sei is anintj and sieapronoun. On the page they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (ei ↔ ie) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40906, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sei is recorded at frequency rank #118, classified as anintj. sie is at rank #40,788, tagged as apron, pronounced /zi:/ ouvir^(fonte ?) ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 40906, this pair ranks #25,115 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sei vs sie

Shared letters: eis. Private to "sei": -. Private to "sie": -.

"sei" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "sie" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sei" for "sie" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sei" is an intj and "sie" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sei" or "sie"?
"sei" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #118 in our Portuguese list, against #40,788 for "sie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "sei" vs "sie" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,115 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sei" and "sie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs sie". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #25,115 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