shevssimWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: she is a pronoun, sim is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#8,962
“she” frequency rank
#147
“sim” frequency rank
9109
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature she sim
Definition caso nominativo da terceira pessoa feminina do singular, ela. exprime afirmação, acordo, aprovação, permissão ou consentimento

Letter map: she vs sim

Shared letters muted; letters that set she and sim apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
she
3 ch
sim

Role in the sentence - she and sim

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: she is apronoun and simanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9109, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

she is recorded at frequency rank #8,962, classified as apron. sim is at rank #147, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈsĩ/.

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 9109, this pair ranks #64,435 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of she vs sim

Shared letters: s. Private to "she": eh. Private to "sim": im.

"she" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "sim" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "she" for "sim" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "she" is a pronoun and "sim" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "she" or "sim" show up more?
"sim" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #147 in our Portuguese list, against #8,962 for "she". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "she" and "sim".

  • Full dictionary entry for "she" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sim" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,435 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "she" and "sim" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs she". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #64,435 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