ach vs al, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ach” is an intj and “al” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,212
“ach” frequency rank: #1,002
“al” frequency rank: 49214
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ach	al
Definition	oh	ao (contração da preposição a (Espanhol) e do artigo el (Espanhol)).

Letter map: ach vs al

Shared letters muted; letters that set ach and al apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

ach

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for ach / al

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ach is anintj and alacontraction. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49214, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ach is recorded at frequency rank #48,212, classified as anintj. al is at rank #1,002, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /al/.

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 49214, this pair ranks #15,846 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ach vs al

Shared letters: a. Private to "ach": ch. Private to "al": l.

"ach" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "al" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ach" for "al" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ach" is an intj and "al" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "ach" or "al"?

"al" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,002 in our Portuguese list, against #48,212 for "ach". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ach" and "al".

Full dictionary entry for "ach" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "al" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #15,846 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ach" and "al" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ach vs acs". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #15,846 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.