Common English Mistakes Indian Students Make (and Easy Fixes)
Indian English is a rich, established variety with its own vocabulary, rhythm, and history, and nothing here suggests it is wrong. The point is narrower. When your reader is an international examiner, a journal editor, or a recruiter in another country, a few habits carried over from school and office English can read as unclear or dated, and that can quietly cost you marks. Smoothing them out is not about changing who you are. It is about being understood everywhere your writing travels.
Most of these patterns come from older textbooks, email templates, or the way English maps onto Hindi and other Indian languages, so they are shared by millions of capable writers. The good news is that they are easy to spot once someone points them out. Below are the ones that appear most often in essays, statements of purpose, and formal emails, grouped by type, each with a quick fix and a one-line reason you can apply today.
Business phrases that sound dated
A lot of formal Indian writing borrows from an older clerical style that global readers now find stiff. These phrases are not errors, but shorter, plainer versions sound more modern and confident, which is exactly the tone examiners and employers reward.
Not: ‘Kindly do the needful.’ Better: ‘Please take care of this,’ or better still, name the exact action you want done.
Not: ‘Please revert back to me.’ Better: ‘Please reply,’ or ‘Please get back to me.’
Not: ‘Can we prepone the meeting?’ Better: ‘Can we move the meeting earlier?’
Not: ‘Please find attached herewith my resume.’ Better: ‘I have attached my resume,’ or ‘My resume is attached.’
Not: ‘I want to order for a book.’ Better: ‘I want to order a book.’
- ‘Kindly inform me’ or ‘intimate me’ becomes ‘please let me know.’
- ‘I am out of station’ becomes ‘I am out of town’ or ‘I am away.’
- ‘Kindly’ on every line becomes an occasional ‘please.’
- ‘Myself Rahul’ becomes ‘My name is Rahul’ or ‘I am Rahul.’
Articles, prepositions, and tense
These three areas trip up almost everyone, partly because Hindi and many Indian languages handle them very differently from English. A quick pass focused on each one clears up most formal-writing slips.
Not: ‘I have a knowledge of statistics.’ Better: ‘I have knowledge of statistics,’ or ‘I understand statistics well.’
Not: ‘Education is important for the society.’ Better: ‘Education is important for society.’
Not: ‘We will discuss about the topic.’ Better: ‘We will discuss the topic.’
Not: ‘She is married with a doctor and good in maths.’ Better: ‘She is married to a doctor and good at maths.’
Not: ‘I am having two brothers and I am knowing the answer.’ Better: ‘I have two brothers and I know the answer.’
The continuous tense (‘I am doing’) is for actions happening right now, not for permanent facts or states, so keep ‘have,’ ‘know,’ ‘understand,’ and ‘believe’ in their simple form unless something is literally in progress this minute.
Catch grammar, spelling, and clarity slips while keeping your own voice — free.
Grammar Checker →Emphasis, redundancy, and agreement
The last group covers small words that add emphasis in speech but blur meaning on the page, along with a few tidy-up rules that make sentences crisper.
Not: ‘I submitted it yesterday only.’ Better: ‘I submitted it just yesterday,’ or ‘I submitted it only yesterday’ if you mean no later than then.
Not: ‘Return back the book and repeat again the steps.’ Better: ‘Return the book and repeat the steps.’
Not: ‘The reason is because it rained.’ Better: ‘The reason is that it rained,’ or simply ‘It rained.’
- ‘New innovation,’ ‘close proximity,’ and ‘basic fundamentals’ each repeat themselves, so drop one word.
- ‘Comprise of’ and ‘emphasise on’ add a preposition that is not needed.
- ‘In spite of the fact that’ can shrink to ‘although.’
Not: ‘The team are winning and the government are deciding.’ Better: ‘The team is winning and the government is deciding.’
British and Indian English sometimes treat a group as plural, and in conversation that is perfectly natural. For exams and international journals, though, the safe default is a singular verb when you mean the body acting as one.
None of these habits make your English wrong. They are simply the difference between writing that works at your college and writing that reads cleanly for anyone, anywhere. Learn to notice two or three patterns at a time, and within a few weeks the fixes will feel automatic. When you want a second pair of eyes before you submit, a quick check can catch what a fast read misses, without flattening the voice that makes your writing yours.
Catch grammar, spelling, and clarity slips while keeping your own voice — free.
Grammar Checker →