cafévscineWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,337
“café” frequency rank
#961
“cine” frequency rank
2298
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature café cine
Definition Semilla del fruto del cafeto, rica en el estimulante cafeína, que se emplea tostada y molida para preparar una bebida con estas propiedades que se consume en casi todo el mundo. Es el segundo producto en volumen en el comercio internacional, solo superado por el petróleo. Arte de hacer películas para su exposición en salas de espectáculo.

Where the eye mixes café and cine

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. café and cine follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
café
4 ch
cine

Look-alike desk: café vs cine

A purely visual mix-up. café ([kaˈfe]) and cine ([ˈsine]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2298, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

café is recorded at frequency rank #1,337, classified as anoun, pronounced [kaˈfe]. cine is at rank #961, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈsine].

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 2298, this pair ranks #320,602 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of café vs cine

Shared letters: c. Private to "café": afé. Private to "cine": ein.

"café" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cine" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cine ← ccine · cinne · cnie · icne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "café" for "cine" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([kaˈfe] versus [ˈsine]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "café" or "cine"?
"cine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #961 in our Spanish list, against #1,337 for "café". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "café" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #320,602 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "café" and "cine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "café vs catre". 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 #320,602 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