You Don't Have 25 Grammar Problems. You Have 7. Você não tem vinte e cinco problemas diferentes de gramática. Você tem sete padrões que aparecem em todo lugar.

There's a phenomenon in language acquisition called L1 interference. It explains why a Brazilian student will write "In my city have many restaurants" and a Japanese student will write "I went to store yesterday" — two completely different errors, but both perfectly logical once you understand what's happening.

Your brain doesn't learn a second language from scratch. It builds on the architecture of your first language. When the structures match, you get it right effortlessly. When they clash, you make errors — the same errors, repeatedly, for years — without understanding why.

I spent several years teaching IELTS preparation to students from different language backgrounds. What struck me wasn't the errors themselves. It was the patterns.

The Seven Patterns

After marking thousands of essays from Brazilian students, I stopped seeing random mistakes. I started seeing the same seven patterns appearing in nearly every piece of writing:

1. "Have" for existence. Portuguese uses "ter" (to have) where English uses "there is/are." So "Tem muitos restaurantes" becomes "Have many restaurants" instead of "There are many restaurants."

2. False cognates. "Pretender" means "to intend" in Portuguese. "Atualmente" means "currently." "Eventualmente" means "occasionally." But they look like "pretend," "actually," and "eventually" — so students use the English words with Portuguese meanings.

3. FOR instead of TO. The Portuguese word "para" covers both. English splits them: "I went to the gym TO relax" (purpose) versus "This gift is FOR you" (recipient). Brazilians default to FOR for everything.

4. Present tense with "since" and "for." Portuguese uses present tense for ongoing situations. English requires present perfect: "I have lived here since 2018," not "I live here since 2018."

5. Missing subject "it." Portuguese is a pro-drop language — you can omit the subject when it's obvious. English isn't. "Is important" needs to be "IT is important."

6. "Used to" without "to." The Portuguese equivalent "costumar" doesn't require a connector. English does. Always.

7. Stop + infinitive vs. gerund. "Stop to smoke" means you paused in order to have a cigarette. "Stop smoking" means you quit. Portuguese doesn't make this distinction.

These seven patterns account for roughly 70% of the grammar errors I see in Brazilian IELTS essays.

Why This Matters

The standard approach to grammar instruction treats errors as random deficiencies to be corrected one by one. Study more grammar. Do more exercises. Hope it sticks.

But L1 interference isn't random. It's systematic. Your brain is doing exactly what it's supposed to do — applying known patterns to new situations. The problem isn't lack of effort. It's lack of awareness about which specific patterns are causing the interference.

Once a student understands why they write "have" instead of "there is" — once they see it's not carelessness but a direct translation of Portuguese structure — something shifts. The error becomes visible. Predictable. Fixable.

The Practical Application

I built a short diagnostic quiz that tests for these seven patterns. It takes about two minutes. At the end, you see exactly which patterns are invisible to you and which you've already mastered.

It's free: Click Here to Take The Quiz.

For students who want the full breakdown — the linguistics behind each pattern, the rules, and practice exercises — I put together a guide called The Brazil Big 7. It's $7, which felt appropriate.

But the quiz alone will show you something useful: you don't have twenty-five different grammar problems. You have seven patterns that appear everywhere.

Fix those, and most of your errors disappear.

Paul Collins taught IELTS preparation in Australia for over 20 years, primarily to Brazilian, Japanese, and Taiwanese students. He now runs The IELTS Love Letters, a course that teaches grammar through narrative rather than textbooks.