youvsyoungTell them apart

Quick tell: you is a pronoun, young is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#978
“you” frequency rank
#5,804
“young” frequency rank
6782
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature you young
Definition caso nominativo da segunda pessoa do singular, tu, você jovem, novo

Letter map: you vs young

Shared letters muted; letters that set you and young apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
you
5 ch
young

Role in the sentence - you and young

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: you is apronoun and younganadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “you” sits inside “young”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6782, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

you is recorded at frequency rank #978, classified as apron. young is at rank #5,804, tagged as anadj, pronounced /jʌŋ/.

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 6782, this pair ranks #67,548 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of you vs young

Shared letters: ouy. Private to "you": -. Private to "young": gn.

"you" · 3 letters · shape VVV  ·  "young" · 5 letters · shape VVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • youngoyung · yonug · yougn · youngg · younng · yuong · yyoung

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "you" for "young" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "you" is a pronoun and "young" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "you" or "young"?
"you" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #978 in our Portuguese list, against #5,804 for "young". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "you" vs "young" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "you" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "young" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #67,548 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "you" and "young" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "yat vs you". 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 #67,548 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