tha vs ty, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#38,931
“tha” frequency rank: #23,157
“ty” frequency rank: 62088
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	tha	ty
Definition	presente do verbo bi (ser, estar); sou/estou, é/está, somos/estamos, são/estão	tu, você (pronome pessoal do caso nominativo da segunda pessoa do singular)

Letter map: tha vs ty

Shared letters muted; letters that set tha and ty apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

tha

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for tha / ty

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tha is averb and tyapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62088, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tha is recorded at frequency rank #38,931, classified as averb, pronounced /ha/. 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 62088, this pair ranks #6,836 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tha vs ty

Shared letters: t. Private to "tha": ah. Private to "ty": y.

"tha" · 3 letters · shape CCV · "ty" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tha" for "ty" ever safe?

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

Frequency check: "tha" vs "ty" - which ranks higher?

"ty" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,157 in our Portuguese list, against #38,931 for "tha". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "tha" 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 #6,836 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"tha" and "ty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tha vs tosa". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #6,836 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.