ia vs im, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ia” and “im” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#600
“ia” frequency rank: #12,077
“im” frequency rank: 12677
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ia	im
Definition	primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito imperfeito do indicativo do verbo ir	sou;

Letter map: ia vs im

Shared letters muted; letters that set ia and im apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

Pair insight - ia / im

ia and im are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - a in “ia” becomes m in “im”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12677, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ia is recorded at frequency rank #600, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈi.ɐ/. im is at rank #12,077, tagged as averb.

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 12677, this pair ranks #59,843 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ia vs im

Shared letters: i. Private to "ia": a. Private to "im": m.

"ia" · 2 letters · shape VV · "im" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ia" for "im" ever safe?

No. They differ by a single letter - a in “ia” becomes m in “im”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

Frequency check: "ia" vs "im" - which ranks higher?

"ia" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #600 in our Portuguese list, against #12,077 for "im". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "ia" vs "im" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "ia" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "im" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #59,843 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ia" and "im" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "im vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #59,843 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.