talãovstangoConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#44,612
“talão” frequency rank
#13,623
“tango” frequency rank
58235
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature talão tango
Definition bloco de folhas destacáveis estilo musical e dança a par; tem forma musical binária e compasso de dois por quatro; sua coreografia é complexa

Where the eye mixes talão and tango

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. talão (CVCVV) and tango (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
talão
5 ch
tango

Why the eye confuses talão with tango

A purely visual mix-up. talão (/tɐ.ˈlɐ̃w̃/) and tango (/ˈtɐ̃.ɡu/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58235, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

talão is recorded at frequency rank #44,612, classified as anoun, pronounced /tɐ.ˈlɐ̃w̃/. tango is at rank #13,623, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɐ̃.ɡu/.

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 58235, this pair ranks #8,863 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of talão vs tango

Shared letters: aot. Private to "talão": lã. Private to "tango": gn.

"talão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "tango" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tango ← atngo · tagno · tanggo · tanngo · tanog · tnago · ttango

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "talão" for "tango" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/tɐ.ˈlɐ̃w̃/ versus /ˈtɐ̃.ɡu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "talão" vs "tango" - which ranks higher?
"tango" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,623 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

Eye-level mix-up between "talão" and "tango" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "talão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tango" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,863 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "talão" and "tango" 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 #8,863 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