ia vs imi, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#600
“ia” frequency rank: #47,938
“imi” frequency rank: 48538
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ia	imi
Definition	primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito imperfeito do indicativo do verbo ir	terceira pessoa do singular do passado do indicativo do verbo imeä:

Where the eye mixes ia and imi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch

3 ch

imi

Visual trap between ia and imi

A purely visual mix-up. ia (/ˈi.ɐ/) and imi (/ˈi.mi/) 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 48538, 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/. imi is at rank #47,938, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈi.mi/.

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 48538, this pair ranks #16,625 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ia vs imi

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

"ia" · 2 letters · shape VV · "imi" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ia" and "imi" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No. They are said differently (/ˈi.ɐ/ versus /ˈi.mi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ia" or "imi" show up more?

"ia" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #600 in our Portuguese list, against #47,938 for "imi". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "ia" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "imi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #16,625 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ia" and "imi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "imi vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #16,625 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.