guíavsgulaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,345
“guía” frequency rank
#40,329
“gula” frequency rank
42674
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guía gula
Definition Cualquier cosa, material o inmaterial, que sirve para orientarse (indicar la dirección, el camino, la manera corrrecta, etc.). Exceso en la comida o bebida, y apetito desordenado de comer y beber.

Where the eye mixes guía and gula

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

4 ch
guía
4 ch
gula

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. guía ([ˈgia]) and gula ([ˈgula]) 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 a single letter - í in “guía” becomes l in “gula”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42674, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guía is recorded at frequency rank #2,345, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈgia]. gula is at rank #40,329, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈgula].

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 42674, this pair ranks #146,891 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of guía vs gula

Shared letters: agu. Private to "guía": í. Private to "gula": l.

"guía" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "gula" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gulaggula · glua · gual · gulla · ugla

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "guía" and "gula" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([ˈgia] versus [ˈgula]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "guía" or "gula"?
"guía" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,345 in our Spanish list, against #40,329 for "gula". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "guía" and "gula". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "guía" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gula" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,891 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guía" and "gula" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guan vs gula". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list