acompañabavsacompañadoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: acompañaba is a verb, acompañado is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“acompañaba” is a verb and “acompañado” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,019
“acompañaba” frequency rank
#3,823
“acompañado” frequency rank
22842
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acompañaba acompañado
Definition Primera persona del singular (yo) del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo de acompañar. Que vive con una pareja sexual sin haberse casado.

Where the eye mixes acompañaba and acompañado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. acompañaba and acompañado follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCCVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

10 ch
acompañaba
10 ch
acompañado

Visual trap between acompañaba and acompañado

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: acompañaba is [akõmpaˈɲaβ̞a] while acompañado is [akõmpaˈɲað̞o]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22842, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acompañaba is recorded at frequency rank #19,019, classified as averb, pronounced [akõmpaˈɲaβ̞a]. acompañado is at rank #3,823, tagged as anadj, pronounced [akõmpaˈɲað̞o].

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 22842, this pair ranks #248,494 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of acompañaba vs acompañado

Shared letters: acmopñ. Private to "acompañaba": b. Private to "acompañado": d.

"acompañaba" · 10 letters · shape VCVCCVCVCV  ·  "acompañado" · 10 letters · shape VCVCCVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acompañaba" for "acompañado" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "acompañaba" is a verb and "acompañado" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "acompañaba" vs "acompañado" - which ranks higher?
"acompañado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,823 in our Spanish list, against #19,019 for "acompañaba". 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 "acompañaba" and "acompañado" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "acompañaba" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acompañado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #248,494 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acompañaba" and "acompañado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acompañaba vs acompañarán". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #248,494 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