pararávspasaráTell them apart

Which to use

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

#36,729
“parará” frequency rank
#4,274
“pasará” frequency rank
41003
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature parará pasará
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del futuro de indicativo de parar o de pararse. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del futuro de indicativo de pasar.

Where the eye mixes parará and pasará

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. parará and pasará follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
parará
6 ch
pasará

Why the eye confuses parará with pasará

A purely visual mix-up. parará ([paɾaˈɾa]) and pasará ([pasaˈɾa]) 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 - r in “parará” becomes s in “pasará”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41003, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

parará is recorded at frequency rank #36,729, classified as averb, pronounced [paɾaˈɾa]. pasará is at rank #4,274, tagged as averb, pronounced [pasaˈɾa].

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 41003, this pair ranks #156,035 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of parará vs pasará

Shared letters: aprá. Private to "parará": -. Private to "pasará": s.

"parará" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "pasará" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "parará" for "pasará" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([paɾaˈɾa] versus [pasaˈɾa]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "parará" or "pasará" show up more?
"pasará" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,274 in our Spanish list, against #36,729 for "parará". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "parará" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pasará" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #156,035 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "parará" and "pasará" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "parará vs parca". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #156,035 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