1. "I am having" instead of "I have"
Wrong: "I am having two brothers." Right: "I have two brothers." Have is a state verb, so it is not used in the progressive tense. Having lunch and having a meeting are fine. Having a car is not.
2. Dropping articles (a, an, the)
Wrong: "I went to market." Right: "I went to the market." Hindi has no articles, so they get dropped. The rule is simple: use the for something specific, and a or an for something general.
3. "Yesterday I am going"
A past-tense mix-up. Wrong: "Yesterday I am going to school." Right: "Yesterday I went to school." When there is a time marker (yesterday, last week), the verb must be in the past too. Lock in this one rule and 80% of these mistakes disappear.
4. Word-for-word direct translation
Wrong: "Order me a coffee" (when you want one for yourself). Right: "Order a coffee for me", or simply "Get me a coffee". Forcing a Hindi sentence structure word for word into English breaks your fluency.
5. "Discuss about" (and "explain about", "describe about")
These three verbs do not take "about". Wrong: "Let me discuss about this." Right: "Let me discuss this." The same goes for explain and describe.
6. "Most highest", "most best"
A double superlative is incorrect. Wrong: "He is the most highest in our class." Right: "He is the highest" or "He is the topmost". Use either the superlative form or most, not both.
7. "Cousin brother", "cousin sister"
In English there is just "cousin". Adding a gender is unnecessary and incorrect. "He is my cousin" is perfectly clear.
8. "Kindly do the needful"
An Indian-English email staple, but globally outdated. In modern English, say "Please take care of this" or "Could you please look into this". Avoid it in job applications if you are writing to international companies.
9. "Pass out from college"
"Pass out" in English means "to faint". What you mean is "graduated from college". Wrong: "I passed out from IIT in 2023." That actually sounds hilarious to foreign interviewers.
10. Pronunciation: confusing V and W
Hindi has no clear V/W distinction, so pronunciations like "wery" and "wegetable" catch an interviewer's attention. The rule: for V, the lower lip touches the upper teeth; for W, round both lips.
11. Crutch fillers like "actually" and "basically"
In conversation you might buy time with fillers. In an English interview these become a problem, because even English fillers ("actually", "basically", "you know") sound unprofessional to native speakers. A strategic pause is better than a filler.
12. The sentence-end stop
"I went to Delhi." End. Pause. Awkward silence. Native English speakers continue with a question: "I went to Delhi for a wedding, what about you?" That is how conversation flow is built.
BolBadlo's AI catches these mistakes in real-time. ₹5/day.
Try free →How to fix all these in 30 days
Step 1 is awareness. You have read this article, so now you know. Step 2 is practice. Do 10 minutes of voice practice every day, especially by listening back to your own recordings. The first time, you will be shocked by how often you say "having" and "actually".
Step 3 is feedback. Catching your own mistakes alone is hard. An AI app like BolBadlo or a speaking partner both give you that feedback loop.
Related: Fluent English in 30 days, Spoken English in Hindi, English for BPO.