acercabanvsacercaráTell them apart

Which to use

“acercaban” and “acercará” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#29,901
“acercaban” frequency rank
#49,379
“acercará” frequency rank
79280
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acercaban acercará
Definition Tercera persona del plural (ellos, ellas; ustedes, 2.ª persona) del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo de acercar o de acercarse. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del futuro de indicativo de acercar o de acercarse.

Where the eye mixes acercaban and acercará

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. acercaban runs 9 letters (VCVCCVCVC) against acercará's 8 (VCVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
acercaban
8 ch
acercará

Look-alike desk: acercaban vs acercará

A purely visual mix-up. acercaban ([aseɾˈkaβ̞ãn]) and acercará ([aseɾkaˈɾa]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79280, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acercaban is recorded at frequency rank #29,901, classified as averb, pronounced [aseɾˈkaβ̞ãn]. acercará is at rank #49,379, tagged as averb, pronounced [aseɾkaˈɾa].

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 79280, this pair ranks #13,228 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of acercaban vs acercará

Shared letters: acer. Private to "acercaban": bn. Private to "acercará": á.

"acercaban" · 9 letters · shape VCVCCVCVC  ·  "acercará" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acercaban ← accercaban · acecraban · aceracban · acercaabn · acercabann · acercabban · acercabna · acercavan

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acercaban" for "acercará" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([aseɾˈkaβ̞ãn] versus [aseɾkaˈɾa]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "acercaban" or "acercará" show up more?
"acercaban" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,901 in our Spanish list, against #49,379 for "acercará". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "acercaban" and "acercará" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "acercaban" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acercará" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,228 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acercaban" and "acercará" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acercará vs acordará". 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 #13,228 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list