yesvsyouWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: yes is a adverb, you is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#12,166
“yes” frequency rank
#978
“you” frequency rank
13144
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature yes you
Definition sim caso nominativo da segunda pessoa do singular, tu, você

Letter map: yes vs you

Shared letters muted; letters that set yes and you apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
yes
3 ch
you

Part-of-speech tell for yes / you

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: yes is anadverb and youapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13144, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

yes is recorded at frequency rank #12,166, classified as anadv, pronounced /jɛs/. you is at rank #978, 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 13144, this pair ranks #59,303 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of yes vs you

Shared letters: y. Private to "yes": es. Private to "you": ou.

"yes" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "you" · 3 letters · shape VVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "yes" and "you" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "yes" is an adverb and "you" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "yes" or "you"?
"you" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #978 in our Portuguese list, against #12,166 for "yes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "yes" and "you". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "yes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "you" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,303 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "yes" and "you" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "yat vs yes". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #59,303 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