habíavshadaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: había is a verb, hada is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“había” is a verb and “hada” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#117
“había” frequency rank
#18,559
“hada” frequency rank
18676
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature había hada
Definition Primera persona del singular (yo) del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo de haber. Ser fantástico similar a una mujer, al que se atribuían poderes mágicos y la adivinación del futuro.

Where the eye mixes había and hada

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

5 ch
había
4 ch
hada

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: había is [aˈβ̞ia] while hada is [ˈað̞a]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18676, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

había is recorded at frequency rank #117, classified as averb, pronounced [aˈβ̞ia]. hada is at rank #18,559, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈað̞a].

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 18676, this pair ranks #266,920 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of había vs hada

Shared letters: ah. Private to "había": . Private to "hada": d.

"había" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "hada" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hadaahda · haad · hadda · hdaa · hhada

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "había" and "hada" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "había" is a verb and "hada" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "había" or "hada"?
"había" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #117 in our Spanish list, against #18,559 for "hada". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list