ledovsllegóWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ledo is a adjective, llegó is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#46,033
“ledo” frequency rank
#687
“llegó” frequency rank
46720
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ledo llegó
Definition Alegre, contento. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de llegar.

Where the eye mixes ledo and llegó

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. ledo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against llegó's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
ledo
5 ch
llegó

Why the eye confuses ledo with llegó

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ledo is [ˈleð̞ʊ] while llegó is [ʝeˈɣ̞o]. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46720, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ledo is recorded at frequency rank #46,033, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈleð̞ʊ]. llegó is at rank #687, tagged as averb, pronounced [ʝeˈɣ̞o].

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 46720, this pair ranks #124,159 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ledo vs llegó

Shared letters: el. Private to "ledo": do. Private to "llegó": gó.

"ledo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "llegó" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ledo ← eldo · ldeo · leddo · leod · lledo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ledo" and "llegó" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ledo" is an adjective and "llegó" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "ledo" or "llegó" show up more?
"llegó" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #687 in our Spanish list, against #46,033 for "ledo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ledo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "llegó" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #124,159 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ledo" and "llegó" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ledo vs lens". 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 #124,159 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