talk vs tão, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“talk” is a verb and “tão” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,582
“talk” frequency rank: #119
“tão” frequency rank: 9701
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	talk	tão
Definition	conversar	tanto, com tal intensidade

Letter map: talk vs tão

Shared letters muted; letters that set talk and tão apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

4 ch

talk

3 ch

tão

Grammar separator: talk vs tão

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: talk is averb and tãoanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9701, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

talk is recorded at frequency rank #9,582, classified as averb. tão is at rank #119, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈtɐ̃w̃/.

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 9701, this pair ranks #63,647 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of talk vs tão

Shared letters: t. Private to "talk": akl. Private to "tão": oã.

"talk" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "tão" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

talk ← atlk · takl · talkk · tallk · tlak · ttalk

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "talk" and "tão" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Which is more common, "talk" or "tão"?

"tão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #119 in our Portuguese list, against #9,582 for "talk". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "talk" and "tão". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "talk" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #63,647 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"talk" and "tão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "talão vs talk". 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 #63,647 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.