Typical English Mispronunciations We Make As Indians

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India is a country with more than 1500 languages spoken across different states and regions. With that being said, English is still commonly spoken in many parts of the country, including communicating instructions in schools, universities and cities.

However, Indians tend to mispronounce certain English words. It’s only natural as we live within a diversity of spoken languages.

Common and habitual mispronunciations made in English

There are primarily three ways in which we typically miss or slip in our English language habits.

Sound difference – Some words are stressed upon more than needed. For instance, “th” for ‘thing’ is pronounced with a puff of air, whereas ‘this’ or ‘that’ is supposed to be less stressed upon “th”. However, we end up doing the opposite. Similarly, the letters “w” and “v” are often interchanged while speaking.

Devoicing – The pairs of sounds that are similar to each other but are different. For instance, we pronounce “z” as “s”/ “d” as “t”/ “g” as “k”, and so on.

Intonations – Intonations differ between Indian languages and the English language. Indian languages are syllable-timed, whereas English is stress-timed. By this, we mean the style of pitch between the two languages. In many Indian languages, we have a rise in pitch when we make statements or ask questions. In the English language, the rise in pitch is most often used to mention uncertainty or indicate a yes or no question.

If you want to learn English fluently without making these common mistakes join an

English-speaking course online⁠

. Training under professional and native English speakers can help you eliminate the typical mistakes made while speaking English.

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