Seven English Grammar Mistakes Urdu Speakers Make (and Why)
Most mistakes are not random. They are Urdu (or Punjabi) grammar showing through in English. Learn the pattern behind each one and you can fix a whole family of mistakes at once.
Why your mistakes follow patterns
If you speak Urdu or Punjabi, most of your English mistakes are not random. They are your first language showing through, a process linguists call transfer. Urdu puts the verb at the end of the sentence, has no articles, uses the same word (woh) for "he", "she" and "it", and forms questions by keeping the word order and just adding a question word or a rising tone. English does none of these things, so a sentence translated word for word from Urdu comes out with a recognizable set of errors.
The good news is that a pattern is easier to fix than a list of unrelated mistakes. Once you understand why "Where you are going?" feels natural, you can correct hundreds of similar questions at once. Many of these patterns also appear for speakers of other South Asian languages that share Urdu's basic structure, so the advice applies broadly. You will not make all seven; treat this as a checklist and find the two or three that are yours.
1. The missing "do / does / did"
Urdu has no equivalent of English "do-support". A question is the statement with a question word added, and a negative is the statement with nahin. English needs a helper verb for both.
UrduAap kahan ja rahe hain? (literally: "You where going are?")
Wrong"Where you are going?" / "Why you didn't come?" / "What you want?"
Correct"Where are you going?" / "Why didn't you come?" / "What do you want?"
WhyEnglish moves the helper verb in front of the subject in a question. If there is no helper verb (as in "you want"), it adds do, does or did.
UrduKya aap usay jaante hain? (word order identical to the statement; kya only marks it as a question)
Wrong"You know him?" / "You went there yesterday?"
Correct"Do you know him?" / "Did you go there yesterday?"
WhyIn relaxed conversation native speakers do say "You know him?" with rising intonation, so this is not a disaster. But in an interview, an exam or writing, the full form is expected.
UrduMujhe pasand nahin hai. (nahin just goes into the sentence)
Wrong"I not like it." / "He not coming." / "I am not go."
Correct"I don't like it." / "He isn't coming." / "I'm not going."
Why"Not" cannot attach directly to a main verb. It follows a helper: do/does/did, a form of be, or a modal like can or will.
A three-step recipe for any question:
- Start with the question word (where, why, what, how), if there is one.
- Add the helper verb (do, does, did, is, are, can, will). If the statement has no helper, use do/does/did.
- Then the subject, then the main verb in its base form: "Where did you go?" (not "Where did you went?").
2. One word for "he", "she" and "it"
In Urdu, woh means he, she or that, and gender shows up in the verb or adjective instead: woh gaya (he went) versus woh gayi (she went). English is the reverse: the pronoun carries gender and the verb tells you nothing.
UrduMeri behen doctor hai. Woh hospital mein kaam karti hai.
Wrong"My sister is a doctor. He works at a hospital." / "My mother, he is cooking."
Correct"My sister is a doctor. She works at a hospital." / "My mother is cooking."
WhyYou have to choose he/she before the verb, which is a decision Urdu never asks of you at that point in the sentence. The habit of repeating the subject ("My mother, she is...") also comes from spoken Urdu; it is fine in casual speech but should be dropped in writing.
Fix: whenever you name a person, immediately attach the pronoun in your head: mother → she, brother → he, teacher → check who it is. Ten seconds describing your family out loud, using only "he" and "she", is a good daily drill.
3. Using "will" inside "if" and "when" clauses
Urdu can put its future tense inside an agar ("if") or jab ("when") clause: Agar kal barish hogi to main nahin aaunga. Word for word into English, that gives a future in both halves.
Wrong"If it will rain tomorrow, I will not come." / "When he will arrive, I will call you."
Correct"If it rains tomorrow, I won't come." / "When he arrives, I'll call you."
WhyAfter if, when, as soon as, before, after, until, English uses the present simple even when the meaning is future. The will goes only in the main clause. (Also, "then" after the if-clause is optional and usually dropped.)
There are rare exceptions, such as the polite "If you will follow me...", but ignore them until this rule is automatic.
4. "Since" and "for": one Urdu word, two English ones, and a different tense
Urdu uses se for both a starting point and a length of time, with a plain present tense: Main 2019 se yahan rehta hoon (since 2019) and Main do saal se yahan rehta hoon (for two years). English splits this into two words and needs the present perfect for anything that started in the past and continues now.
Wrong"I live here since 2019." / "I am studying English since two years." / "I am here from morning."
Correct"I have lived here since 2019." / "I have been studying English for two years." / "I have been here since morning."
| Word | Points to | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| since | the starting point | since 2019, since Monday, since I was a child, since the exam |
| for | the length of time | for two years, for a long time, for three hours, for ages |
Quick test: can you replace the time expression with "a long time"? Then it is for. Is it a date, a day, or an event? Then it is since. Our Common Mistakes guide touches on this; here is the full picture.
5. Continuous tense with verbs of state
In Urdu, Main samajh raha hoon ("I am understanding") is perfectly normal, and possession is expressed without any verb for "have" at all: Mere paas gaari hai ("with me is a car"). When learners reach for English, "have" and "understand" often end up in the continuous.
Wrong"I am having a car." / "I am understanding you." / "She is knowing the answer." / "I am wanting to go."
Correct"I have a car." / "I understand you." / "She knows the answer." / "I want to go."
WhyVerbs that describe a state rather than an action (know, understand, want, like, love, need, believe, own, prefer, belong) normally use the simple present.
The trap is that some of these verbs have a second, action meaning where the continuous is correct:
| Verb | State (use simple) | Action (continuous is fine) |
|---|---|---|
| have | I have a brother. (possession) | I'm having lunch. / We're having a great time. |
| think | I think it's a good idea. (opinion) | I'm thinking about changing jobs. (mental process) |
| see | I see what you mean. (understand) | I'm seeing the doctor at 5. (meeting) |
6. One tag for everything: "isn't it?" and "no?"
Urdu has a single all-purpose tag, na? or hai na?. In South Asian English it turns into "isn't it?" or "no?" attached to every sentence. Standard English tags mirror the helper verb and flip positive and negative.
Wrong"You are coming tomorrow, isn't it?" / "They went yesterday, no?" / "She can swim, isn't it?"
Correct"You're coming tomorrow, aren't you?" / "They went yesterday, didn't they?" / "She can swim, can't she?"
WhyPositive statement gets a negative tag; negative statement gets a positive tag ("He didn't call, did he?"). The tag repeats the helper verb, or uses do/does/did if there isn't one.
To be fair, "isn't it?" is a normal, widely understood feature of South Asian English in casual talk. It is a problem mainly in IELTS-style exams, interviews and international settings, where the mirror version is what listeners expect.
7. Repeating a word to mean "many", "each" or "very"
Urdu repeats words constantly: chhoti chhoti cheezein, garam garam chai, dheere dheere, ek ek karke. English has a few fixed repeating phrases, but not this general habit.
| Urdu pattern | Word-for-word English (avoid) | Natural English |
|---|---|---|
| chhoti chhoti cheezein | small small things | lots of small things / lots of little details |
| garam garam chai | hot hot tea | piping hot tea / really hot tea |
| dheere dheere | slowly slowly | slowly / gradually / little by little |
| ek ek karke | one one by one | one by one |
| sab ko ek ek kitaab di | gave everyone one one book | gave everyone one book each |
Fixed English patterns that do repeat are built with "by": one by one, step by step, bit by bit, day by day. Learn those as chunks.
How to use this list
Do not try to fix all seven at once. Pick the one or two you recognize from your own speech, and give each a week:
- Write five sentences about your own life using the corrected pattern (for example, five questions you would ask a new classmate).
- Say them out loud, then record yourself saying five more without looking.
- When the pattern slips in real conversation, just repeat the sentence correctly and move on.
FAQ
Do only Urdu speakers make these mistakes?
No, learners from many backgrounds make some of them. But the reasons given here are specific to Urdu structure, and some patterns (the shared "isn't it?" tag, reduplication, the single he/she/it pronoun) are especially common for speakers from South Asian language backgrounds.
Should I translate from Urdu in my head before I speak?
Whole-sentence translation is slow and is exactly what produces these patterns. A better approach is to learn short, ready-made English chunks such as "Where do you live?" or "How long have you been...?" and reuse them, so the English structure comes with the phrase instead of being rebuilt from Urdu each time.
Is it a problem to have an Urdu or Punjabi accent while fixing grammar?
No. Grammar and accent are separate. Fixing these patterns changes how your sentences are built, not how you sound. See our pronunciation guide for the small number of sounds that actually affect how easily you are understood.
Speak & Fix turns the mistakes you actually make into personal flashcards as you chat, so you can see which of these patterns are really yours. Try a conversation.