talavstalãoConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#36,251
“tala” frequency rank
#44,612
“talão” frequency rank
80863
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tala talão
Definition a moeda de Samoa bloco de folhas destacáveis

Where the eye mixes tala and talão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. tala runs 4 letters (CVCV) against talão's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
tala
5 ch
talão

Visual trap between tala and talão

A purely visual mix-up. tala (/ˈta.lɐ/) and talão (/tɐ.ˈlɐ̃w̃/) 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 80863, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tala is recorded at frequency rank #36,251, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈta.lɐ/. talão is at rank #44,612, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tɐ.ˈlɐ̃w̃/.

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 80863, this pair ranks #1,258 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tala vs talão

Shared letters: alt. Private to "tala": -. Private to "talão": oã.

"tala" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "talão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tala ← taal · talla · tlaa · ttala

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tala" for "talão" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈta.lɐ/ versus /tɐ.ˈlɐ̃w̃/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tala" or "talão" show up more?
"tala" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,251 in our Portuguese list, against #44,612 for "talão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tala" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "talão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,258 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tala" and "talão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "talão vs travão". 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 #1,258 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