LC Portuguese common mistakes
LC Portuguese · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Reading a passage and answering from general world knowledge or from the topic's gist instead of locating the sentence that actually supports the chosen option, so the answer reflects what the candidate assumes the text says.
LC passages are short and thematically familiar (tourism, family, work, health), which invites top-down guessing. Candidates under time pressure skim for a keyword match and stop at the first option that echoes the passage's vocabulary, missing the qualifier or negation that reverses the meaning.
What to do instead
For every item, underline the exact words in the passage that justify the answer and confirm that no other option is equally supported. Train on distractor types: the option that repeats passage vocabulary but distorts the relationship, the option true in the real world but absent from the text, and the option that is true for a different paragraph. When two options seem right, re-read the sentence with each substituted in.
Treating Portuguese verb tenses as interchangeable when they carry aspectual meaning, particularly confusing pretérito perfeito with pretérito imperfeito, and translating both as simple past.
English has no single systematic equivalent of the perfeito/imperfeito contrast, so learners map both onto 'I did' or 'I was doing' and lose the distinction between a completed event and a habitual or background state. The error is reinforced because many sentences remain comprehensible even when the tense is wrong.
What to do instead
Learn the contrast as aspect, not time: perfeito frames a bounded event (ontem li o livro), imperfeito frames habit, description, or ongoing background (quando era criança, lia muito). Practise with sentences where the choice changes the story, such as 'ela estava doente' versus 'ela esteve doente', and with the classic pairing of background imperfeito plus interrupting perfeito.
Over-applying the personal infinitive or the future subjunctive, or avoiding them entirely, producing either hypercorrect forms like 'para eu fazer' where 'para fazer' is natural, or ungrammatical 'se eu for' replacements like 'se eu vou'.
These are distinctive Portuguese structures with no direct English analogue, so candidates either ignore them or insert them wherever a subject appears. Textbook rules are often memorised as 'use personal infinitive with a different subject' without the nuance that it is optional and register-sensitive.
What to do instead
Master two anchors: the personal infinitive is licensed when the infinitive has an explicit subject different from the main clause (É importante eles chegarem cedo) and is optional elsewhere; the future subjunctive is required after se, quando, assim que, and enquanto referring to future or hypothetical events (se eu puder, quando ele chegar). Drill minimal pairs and note where the impersonal form is the idiomatic choice.
Misplacing or omitting clitic pronouns and their hyphens, writing 'me ajude' for 'ajude-me' in formal written contexts, splitting pronouns incorrectly with future or conditional forms, or ignoring the Brazilian tendency to front pronouns in speech.
English places object pronouns before the verb, and candidates transfer that order. Portuguese enclisis, próclise triggered by negators, adverbs, and subordinators, and mesoclisis in formal future/conditional forms are rule-governed but rarely practised in writing, and the Brazilian colloquial preference for fronting conflicts with the standard written norm tested on exams.
What to do instead
Learn the placement triggers as a checklist: preverbal pronouns with não, nunca, que, se, and adverbs; enclisis in affirmative main clauses; mesoclisis only in formal future/conditional with no attractor (far-se-á). Practise rewriting the same sentence across registers, and remember that exam writing follows the standard norm even when speech differs.
Assuming a Portuguese word that resembles an English word means the same thing, translating 'actually' as 'atualmente', 'parents' as 'parentes', 'to pretend' as 'pretender', or reading 'esquisito' as 'exquisite'.
Cognate density between Portuguese and English is high enough that learners trust resemblance and stop verifying. False friends are frequent in exactly the abstract, academic register used in exam texts, and the error is invisible to the candidate because the resulting sentence still sounds plausible.
What to do instead
Build a personal false-friend list with the correct equivalents: atualmente = currently, parentes = relatives, pretender = to intend, esquisito = strange, realizar = to carry out, and revise it before the exam. When translating, ask whether the sentence's logic survives the literal rendering; if not, the word is probably a false friend. In reading items, verify the meaning against the surrounding clause rather than the English look-alike.
Translating idioms and collocations word for word, rendering 'não deu outra' or 'dar um jeito' literally, or translating 'saudade' and 'jeitinho' with a single English noun that drops the cultural meaning.
Idioms are opaque by definition and are usually learned as vocabulary items without their pragmatic context. Candidates recognise the individual words, assume compositionality, and produce English that is grammatically correct but semantically wrong.
What to do instead
Learn idioms as whole units with a functional English equivalent and a note on register: dar um jeito = to find a way / to sort it out; não deu outra = no surprises there / it was bound to happen. For culturally loaded terms, prefer a short explanatory rendering over a false one-word match, and check that the English idiom you choose has the same formality as the Portuguese source.
Producing a translation that is faithful sentence by sentence but ungrammatical or unidiomatic in the target language, keeping Portuguese word order, dropping English articles, or leaving the progressive where English requires simple aspect.
Candidates translate at the word level under time pressure and do not re-read the output as target-language prose. Structural differences such as adjective position, obligatory English subjects, and the Portuguese preference for the simple past over the progressive are not salient while the source text is in view.
What to do instead
Always produce a second pass with the source covered, reading only the English for naturalness. Check the recurring structural traps: English requires an explicit subject, places adjectives before nouns by default, and uses simple past where Portuguese uses the imperfect for repeated past actions. Reserve time for this revision pass in your exam plan.
Translating into Portuguese with English syntax and calques, writing 'faz sentido' correctly but 'eu estou de acordo com' where 'concordo com' is idiomatic, or overusing 'você' in contexts that call for 'o senhor' or an impersonal construction.
Production into Portuguese requires active control of collocation and register, which is harder to self-monitor than comprehension. Candidates also lack a stock of natural Portuguese equivalents, so they build sentences from English templates.
What to do instead
Memorise high-frequency verb-plus-preposition and noun-plus-preposition combinations (depender de, precisar de, concordar com, consistir em, interessar-se por) and practise paraphrasing English ideas into Portuguese without the English visible. Check register: formal writing prefers impersonal or 'o senhor/a senhora' address, and Brazilian and European norms differ on 'você' versus 'tu'.
Treating Brazilian and European Portuguese as one variety, using 'você' and Brazilian vocabulary in a text clearly marked as European, or missing that 'ônibus/autocarro', 'celular/telemóvel', and 'café da manhã/pequeno-almoço' signal the variety and affect the answer.
Most learning materials default to one variety, usually Brazilian, and candidates do not develop the habit of reading the register and orthographic cues in the prompt. Exam passages often deliberately include regional markers, and the question may hinge on knowing which variety is in play.
What to do instead
Learn the main lexical and grammatical contrasts as paired lists and practise identifying the variety from cues such as 'tu' with verb agreement, placement of clitics, and the use of the gerund versus 'a mais infinitivo'. When a passage is ambiguous, answer from the passage's own usage rather than your default variety.
Missing cultural references embedded in texts, such as the significance of a regional festival, a food item tied to a specific state, or an allusion to a historical or literary figure, and answering as if the passage were culturally neutral.
Cultural knowledge is rarely drilled systematically, and candidates focus on grammar and vocabulary while reading. Allusions are often assumed rather than explained in the text, so a reader without the background fills the gap with a plausible but incorrect inference.
What to do instead
Build a compact cultural map of the Portuguese-speaking world: major regional festivals and their locations, signature dishes and their regions, and a handful of canonical writers and historical events. In the exam, treat any proper noun you do not recognise as a signal to read the surrounding sentence for the function the reference serves in the argument, rather than guessing its content.