tengo
[ˈt̪ẽŋgo]
The verdict
“tengo” is in the everyday core of Spanish, ranked #88 in Spanish word frequency and used as a verb.
- #88
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Primera persona del singular (yo) del presente de indicativo de tener.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tengo |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | [ˈt̪ẽŋgo] |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #88 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tengo” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for tengo is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈt̪ẽŋgo]. Corpus data places it at rank #88 in overall Spanish word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Primera persona del singular (yo) del presente de indicativo de tener.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for tengo, with forms such as "etngo", "tegno", and "tenggo". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "teo", "tono", "Togo", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct Spanish form is tengo, spelled T-E-N-G-O.
Definition
- 1Primera persona del singular (yo) del presente de indicativo de tener.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etngo,tegno,tenggo,tenngo,tenog,tnego,ttengo
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of tengo - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Spanish corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “tengo”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is T-E-N-G-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈt̪ẽŋgo] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “teo” - see the side-by-side comparison. tengo vs teo
- Browse more Spanish words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Spanish words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.