salavsseráConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#636
“sala” frequency rank
#143
“será” frequency rank
779
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sala será
Definition compartimento principal de uma casa terceira pessoa do singular do futuro do presente do indicativo do verbo ser

Where the eye mixes sala and será

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

4 ch
sala
4 ch
será

Look-alike desk: sala vs será

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sala is /"sa.l@/ while será is /se.ˈɾa/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 779, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sala is recorded at frequency rank #636, classified as anoun, pronounced /"sa.l@/. será is at rank #143, tagged as averb, pronounced /se.ˈɾa/.

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 779, this pair ranks #74,877 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sala vs será

Shared letters: s. Private to "sala": al. Private to "será": erá.

"sala" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "será" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • salaasla · saal · salla · slaa · ssala

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sala" and "será" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sala" is a noun and "será" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sala" or "será" show up more?
"será" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #143 in our Portuguese list, against #636 for "sala". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sala" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "será" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,877 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sala" and "será" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sala vs Sau". 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 #74,877 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list