Common English mistakes Hindi speakers make, and how to fix them for a global audience

First, a fair note: Indian English is a real, established variety with hundreds of millions of speakers. Nothing below is "wrong" in India. But when you speak to a global audience — a US client, a UK interviewer, a Singapore team — some Hindi-influenced patterns cause misunderstanding or sound informal. These are the ones to adjust.

The big ones. 1) Continuous with stative verbs: "I am having two brothers", "I am knowing him" → "I have two brothers", "I know him". 2) Questions without inversion: "What you are doing?" → "What are you doing?". 3) Universal tags: "You are coming, isn't it? / no?" → "aren't you?". 4) Indian-only vocabulary: "prepone" (bring forward), "do the needful" (please take care of it), "revert" (reply), "out of station" (out of town), "passed out" (graduated — in the US it means fainted), "today morning" (this morning), "years back" (years ago). 5) "Only" and "itself" for emphasis: "I'm from Delhi only" → "I'm from Delhi". 6) "Discuss about", "cope up with", "return back" → "discuss", "cope with", "return". 7) Introductions: "Myself Rahul" → "I'm Rahul". 8) Uncountables made plural: "furnitures", "staffs", "advices" → furniture, staff, advice. 9) /v/ and /w/ merged ("wery", "vine" for "wine") — top teeth on the lip for /v/, rounded lips for /w/. 10) Rhythm: Indian English gives every syllable similar weight; global listeners follow stress — "deVELopment", "comPUter" — and the retroflex "t/d" in "water", "today" can be softened.

A list won't fix these; making them out loud and being corrected in the moment will. Airi is built for that: she hears the pattern, fixes the one mistake that matters in her reply, and keeps the conversation going. Speak with her daily and these stop being habits within a few weeks. Free to start, no card.

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