tão vs ty, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#119
“tão” frequency rank: #23,157
“ty” frequency rank: 23276
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	tão	ty
Definition	tanto, com tal intensidade	tu, você (pronome pessoal do caso nominativo da segunda pessoa do singular)

Letter map: tão vs ty

Shared letters muted; letters that set tão and ty apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. tão runs 3 letters (CVV) against ty's 2 (CV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch

tão

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for tão / ty

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tão is anadverb and tyapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23276, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tão is recorded at frequency rank #119, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈtɐ̃w̃/. ty is at rank #23,157, tagged as apron.

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 23276, this pair ranks #46,580 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tão vs ty

Shared letters: t. Private to "tão": oã. Private to "ty": y.

"tão" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "ty" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tão" for "ty" ever safe?

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

Which is more common, "tão" or "ty"?

"tão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #119 in our Portuguese list, against #23,157 for "ty". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "tão" vs "ty" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "tão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #46,580 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"tão" and "ty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "til vs ty". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #46,580 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.