allívsallyTell them apart

Quick tell: allí is a adverb, ally is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“allí” is an adverb and “ally” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#453
“allí” frequency rank
#27,474
“ally” frequency rank
27927
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature allí ally
Definition Indica un lugar alejado de quienes hablan o se comunican. Aliado.

Where the eye mixes allí and ally

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
allí
4 ch
ally

Why the eye confuses allí with ally

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: allí is [aˈʝi] while ally is /ˈæl.aɪ/ (sustantivo; también usado para el verbo). Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - í in “allí” becomes y in “ally”, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27927, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

allí is recorded at frequency rank #453, classified as anadv, pronounced [aˈʝi]. ally is at rank #27,474, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈæl.aɪ/ (sustantivo; también usado para el verbo).

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 27927, this pair ranks #224,495 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of allí vs ally

Shared letters: al. Private to "allí": í. Private to "ally": y.

"allí" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "ally" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • allyallyy · aly · alyl · laly

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "allí" for "ally" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "allí" is an adverb and "ally" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "allí" or "ally"?
"allí" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #453 in our Spanish list, against #27,474 for "ally". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "allí" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ally" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #224,495 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "allí" and "ally" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alió vs ally". 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 #224,495 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