Common English mistakes Urdu speakers make, and how to fix them

If your first language is Urdu (or Punjabi), your English mistakes follow its grammar and sounds — one pronoun for he and she, no words starting with two consonants, and a set of Pakistani-English phrases that are clear at home and confusing abroad. Pakistani English is a real variety; these are the patterns to switch for a global audience.

The big ones. 1) A vowel before s-clusters: "iskool", "istation", "isport" → start straight on the /s/. 2) He/she mixed ("voh" is gender-neutral): "My sister… he" → "she". 3) "Too much" for "very much": "I like it too much" → "I really like it" ("too much" means excessively). 4) Continuous with stative verbs: "I am understanding", "I am having a car" → "I understand", "I have". 5) "Give an exam" (imtihan dena) → "take an exam"; "eat medicine" (dawai khana) → "take medicine". 6) "Open/close the light" (kholna/band karna) → "turn on/off". 7) Questions without inversion and the universal tag: "What you are saying?", "…isn't it?" → "What are you saying?", "aren't you?". 8) Pakistani usage that confuses abroad: "What is your good name?" (your name), "do one thing" (here's an idea), "out of station" (out of town), "back side" (behind), "cousin brother", "today morning", "prepone". 9) /v/ and /w/ merged ("wery", "vater") and "-tion" as "-shun" fully stressed — top teeth on the lip for /v/, rounded lips for /w/. 10) Uncountables made plural and articles missing: "furnitures", "I am engineer" → "furniture", "an engineer"; rhythm — stress one syllable: "comPUter", "deVELop".

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.

Urdu sentences that become English slips, word for word

Most of these are correct Urdu carried across one word at a time. Seeing the Urdu underneath makes the English version easier to keep, because you know exactly which habit you are replacing.

Urdu postpositions that add an extra English preposition

Urdu marks the person or topic with a small word after the noun: "se", "ko", "par", "mein". Many English verbs take their object directly, so translating the postposition adds a word that should not be there.

Learn each of these verbs with its object attached, as one chunk: "ask someone", "tell someone", "discuss something".

Questions, articles and tenses: where Urdu grammar and English part ways

• Questions inside a sentence. Urdu never changes word order to ask; "kya" or a question word does the job. English moves the helping verb in a direct question ("Where is he?") but not after "I asked", "I don't know" or "Can you tell me". "I asked him where is he" is an example recorded for Pakistani English in the eWAVE atlas of English varieties. Say: "I asked him where he was."
• Articles. Urdu has no "the", and "ek" (one) only sometimes stands in for "a", so "Manager is in meeting" feels complete. A working rule: a singular countable noun never stands alone. Give it "a", "the", "my" or "this": "The manager is in a meeting."
• Finished time, simple past. The Urdu perfect ("mila hoon") can sit beside a finished time, which gives "I have met him last week". Once English names a finished time, such as "yesterday" or "in 2020", use the simple past: "I met him last week."

English sounds Urdu reshapes, and how to make each one

Urdu gives you a head start: "f", "z" and "sh" are ordinary Urdu sounds, and even the middle sound of "measure" exists as ژ. The work is in five other places.

Rhythm matters as much as single sounds. Urdu gives every syllable about the same length. English keeps the important words long and squeezes the small ones, so in "I can go to the bank for you" only "go" and "bank" are strong, while "can", "to" and "for" almost disappear.

Pakistani English words that mean something else abroad

These are normal at home and belong to Pakistani English. Outside South Asia they can be misheard, so keep a second version ready for international listeners.

A short Airi routine for unlearning Urdu-to-English habits

A habit changes when you say the new sentence, not when you read it. Airi answers out loud and shows one small fix at a time. She does not score pronunciation, but she replies to what she heard: if you say "veil" and she talks about a whale, your lips need another try. The free credits cover about eight minutes, enough for one pass through these steps.

1. Set the target: "Urdu is my first language. Please point out when I say 'did a mistake', 'asked from' or 'discussed about'."
2. Tell her about your morning and about one mistake you made this week. That calls for "had breakfast" and "made a mistake".
3. Have her ask how long you have lived in your city and done your job. Every answer needs "I have been ... for ...".
4. Ask her to role-play a stranger on the street, and begin each question with "Could you tell me where ...". The verb goes last: "Could you tell me where the station is?"
5. Put one sound pair into a sentence: "We were very worried about the weather." If she heard a different word, slow down and repeat it.
6. Each time a small fix appears, say the corrected sentence aloud before you move on.

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Last updated: 2026-10-02