ríovsroomWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#698
“río” frequency rank
#17,281
“room” frequency rank
17979
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature río room
Definition Corriente de agua de caudal importante que discurre por tierra desde un manantial, una masa de hielos o un lago. Habitación.

Where the eye mixes río and room

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
río
4 ch
room

Look-alike desk: río vs room

A purely visual mix-up. río ([ˈrio]) and room (/ɹʊm/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

río is recorded at frequency rank #698, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈrio]. room is at rank #17,281, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɹʊm/.

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 17979, this pair ranks #269,847 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of río vs room

Shared letters: or. Private to "río": í. Private to "room": m.

"río" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "room" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roomorom · roomm · rroom

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "río" and "room" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([ˈrio] versus /ɹʊm/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "río" or "room" show up more?
"río" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #698 in our Spanish list, against #17,281 for "room". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "río" and "room" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "río" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "room" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #269,847 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "río" and "room" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "room vs rum". 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 #269,847 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