reíavsremaWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#18,073
“reía” frequency rank
#45,570
“rema” frequency rank
63643
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reía rema
Definition Primera persona del singular (yo) del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo de reír o de reírse. En la gramática discursiva, parte de la oración que desarrolla el asunto al que el discurso ya hacía referencia, llamado por contraposición tema. En la mayoría de los casos coincide con la información nueva aportada por la oración o cláusula, y corresponde secuencialmente a la parte que sucede al tema.

Where the eye mixes reía and rema

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. reía (CVVV) and rema (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
reía
4 ch
rema

Why the eye confuses reía with rema

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: reía is [reˈia] while rema is [ˈrema]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - í in “reía” becomes m in “rema”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63643, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reía is recorded at frequency rank #18,073, classified as averb, pronounced [reˈia]. rema is at rank #45,570, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈrema].

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 63643, this pair ranks #48,096 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of reía vs rema

Shared letters: aer. Private to "reía": í. Private to "rema": m.

"reía" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "rema" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rema ← erma · ream · remma · rmea · rrema

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "reía" and "rema" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reía" is a verb and "rema" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "reía" or "rema" show up more?
"reía" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,073 in our Spanish list, against #45,570 for "rema". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "reía" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rema" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #48,096 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reía" and "rema" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rema vs riba". 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 #48,096 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