Which to use
“te” is a pronoun and “tell” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #59
- “te” frequency rank
- #9,770
- “tell” frequency rank
- 9829
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | te | tell |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | a ti | contar, narrar |
Letter map: te vs tell
Shared letters muted; letters that set te and tell apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for te / tell
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: te is apronoun and tellaverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “te” sits inside “tell”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9829, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
te is recorded at frequency rank #59, classified as apron, pronounced /tɨ/. tell is at rank #9,770, tagged as averb.
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 9829, this pair ranks #63,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of te vs tell
Shared letters: et. Private to "te": -. Private to "tell": l.
"te" · 2 letters · shape CV · "tell" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- tell ← etll · tel · tlel · ttell
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "te" for "tell" ever safe?
Which is more common, "te" or "tell"?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "te" and "tell".
- Full dictionary entry for "te" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tell" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #63,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "te" and "tell" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tell vs til". 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 #63,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.