If you speak Punjabi, Hindi or Gujarati and your CELPIP Speaking is stuck at 7, your accent is rarely the problem on its own. CELPIP’s podcast says an accent does not automatically lower a Speaking score. What the raters weigh under Listenability is rhythm, pronunciation and intonation together with pauses, self-correction, grammar and sentence variety, and they weigh three other dimensions as well. This page covers the twelve habits that most often do cost marks for speakers of these three languages: four sound habits, four habits of rhythm and pace, two grammar habits, and two habits of word choice and content. For each you get the CELPIP dimension it touches, why it happens, the fix and a drill. CELPIP publishes no results by first language, so these are tendencies widely described in English teaching for these languages, not CELPIP statistics, and not every speaker has every habit. Record one task today and check yourself against the table.
The honest picture: what CELPIP marks and what it does not
Every CELPIP Speaking response is rated by three to five trained raters, each working alone, and every rater is resident in Canada, per celpip.ca’s Results page. They rate four dimensions, each with five performance levels. The factors below are CELPIP’s; the right-hand column is where the habits on this page land.
| Dimension | CELPIP’s factors | Habits on this page that touch it |
|---|---|---|
| Content/Coherence | Number, quality and organisation of ideas; examples and supporting details | Memorised openers that use up time; essay-style lists with no development |
| Vocabulary | Word choice; precision and accuracy; range; suitable use | Indian English words a Canadian listener may not know |
| Listenability | Rhythm, pronunciation and intonation; pauses, interjections and self-correction; grammar and sentence structure; variety of sentence structure | v and w, th, z, clusters, even stress, rising statements, speed and restarts, articles, the progressive with state verbs |
| Task Fulfillment | Relevance, completeness, tone, length | “Respected sir” with a friend, blunt imperatives with a manager, answers that stop early |
Two official statements set the priorities. CELPIP’s podcast (episode 24, “Top 10 Speaking Skills”) says having an accent does not automatically lower your Speaking score. CELPIP’s 2020 post on speaking tips says: “Unless your accent prevents you from being understood, do not focus on it. Instead, concentrate on using good grammar, accurate and varied vocabulary.” So the order of work is: first the habits that change a word or make the listener work (sections 3 and 4), then grammar (section 5), then words, tone and content (sections 6 and 7). If you are choosing between an accent class and practice on grammar range and developed reasons, CELPIP’s own criteria favour the second. That is our judgement, built on the criteria above. The scoring page explains every dimension in full.
Twelve habits at a glance
| # | Habit | Example | Most often in | Dimension | Fix in one line |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | v and w as one sound | “wery”, vest for west | Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati | Listenability | v: top teeth on the lower lip. w: round lips, no teeth |
| 2 | th as t or d | tree for three, dey for they | All three | Listenability | Tongue tip lightly between the teeth, then push air |
| 3 | z as j, f as ph | “jero”, “phast” | z: Punjabi, Gujarati. f: Gujarati, some Hindi | Listenability | z is a buzzing s; f is lip and teeth, no pop |
| 4 | A vowel before s-clusters | “iskool”, “isteshan” | Punjabi, Hindi | Listenability | Start the hiss: sss-chool |
| 5 | Even stress on every syllable | DE-VE-LOP-MENT | All three | Listenability | One strong syllable per word, weak forms for small words |
| 6 | Statements that rise at the end | “I live in Brampton?” | Punjabi especially | Listenability | Let the voice fall at every full stop |
| 7 | Speed, then restarts | Fast bursts, “I mean, I mean” | All three | Listenability | Speak in chunks of four to six words |
| 8 | Whispering in the test room | Low volume so others will not hear | All three | Listenability | Normal phone-call volume into the microphone |
| 9 | Missing or extra articles | “I went to bank”, “the Canada” | All three | Listenability (grammar) | a or an for one of many; the for the one you both know |
| 10 | Progressive with state verbs | “I am having two kids” | All three | Listenability (grammar) | Simple present for have, know, want, understand |
| 11 | Indian English words and stiff politeness | prepone, out of station, kindly, do the needful | All three | Vocabulary, Task Fulfillment | Use the word a Canadian listener would use |
| 12 | Memorised openers and essay lists | “Hello my dear friend, I hope you are fine” | All three | Content/Coherence, Task Fulfillment | First sentence: the person and the problem |
Sound habits: v and w, th, z and f, vowels before clusters
1. v and w as one sound
Why it happens. Punjabi, Hindi and Gujarati each have one sound in this place, made with the lower lip close to the top teeth but without the friction of English v. English has two sounds, and Indian speakers use their one sound for both. Why it matters. Most of the time context saves you, but “vest” and “west”, “vine” and “wine”, “veil” and “whale” become the same word, and a whole answer full of the in-between sound tires the listener. Fix. For v, rest your top teeth on your lower lip and buzz. For w, round your lips as if to say “oo”, keep your teeth out of it, then open. Practise on our v and w read-aloud drill; the v and w guide has a mirror check.
2. th said as t or d
Why it happens. The three languages have dental t and d and aspirated th as in “thali”, but not the English th sounds. Speakers substitute the nearest: “tree” for three, “dey” for they, “tink” for think. Why it matters. Three and tree, thin and tin, though and dough are real pairs. Small words like “the”, “this” and “that” are so frequent that a habit here shows in every sentence. Fix. Put the tip of the tongue lightly between the teeth and push air through for think and three; add voice for this and they. Drill with the voiceless th and voiced th passages, and see the th sound guide.
3. z said as j, f said as ph
Why it happens. Many Punjabi and Gujarati speakers replace z with j: “jero”, “bijy” for busy, “jone” for zone. Many Gujarati speakers, and some Hindi speakers, say f as an aspirated p: “phast”, “phamily”. Some Gujarati speakers also make bad and bed, or man and men, sound alike. Why it matters. Less than v and w, because few English pairs depend on it, but it adds to the overall effort of listening. Fix. z is s with your voice switched on: hiss “sss”, then hum through it to get “zzz”. f is the v position with no voice: top teeth on the lower lip, blow, no pop of air from closed lips. The p, f, b and v drill trains the lip position.
4. A vowel before or inside s-clusters
Why it happens. Everyday Hindi and Punjabi break up a word-initial s plus consonant, so “school” becomes “iskool” or “sakool” and “station” becomes “isteshan”. Why it matters. It adds a syllable, changes the rhythm of the word and, in words like “sport” and “support”, can blur meaning. Fix. Start the hiss before the word: “sss-chool”, “sss-tation”, then shorten the hiss until it joins the next sound. Words to drill: school, station, street, small, sport, speak, study, spring.
And retroflex t and d? Indian English usually makes t and d with the tongue curled back. It is the most noticeable feature of an Indian accent and the least important for CELPIP, because Canadian listeners understand it easily. Leave it until everything else on this page is done.
Rhythm, stress, pace and the rising statement
5. Even stress on every syllable
English is stress-timed: one syllable in each content word is strong and the small words in between shrink. Punjabi, Hindi and Gujarati give syllables more even weight, so Indian English often sounds like every syllable is equally loud, and small words such as “to”, “for”, “and” and “of” are said in full. A listener in Canada finds the important words by their stress; when everything is stressed, nothing is. Word stress can also land on the first syllable where English puts it later: “HO-tel” for ho-TEL, “E-vent” for e-VENT, “DE-velop” for de-VEL-op. Fix: learn the stress of the twenty words you use most in CELPIP answers, and reduce the small words to their weak form, with the schwa sound. Our guides on word stress and the schwa for Indian speakers show how; the stress-shift drill trains it.
6. Statements that rise at the end
Punjabi is a tonal language, and some Punjabi speakers carry strong pitch jumps into English, so a plain statement can rise at the end and sound like a question, or sound emphatic where it should sound calm. In Task 6 that can make a polite request sound like a demand; in Task 1 it makes advice sound unsure. Fix: let your voice fall on the last stressed word of every statement. Read a 60-word answer aloud, falling at each full stop, then record a task the same way. The intonation patterns guide has the shapes for statements, questions and lists.
7. Speed, then restarts
Candidates who want to sound fluent often speak in fast bursts, then stop and restart: “I think that, I mean, I think the best option…”. Pauses, interjections and self-correction are named factors in Listenability, and the Level 7 and 8 descriptors both mention “very few self-corrections, repetitions, or inappropriate pauses”. CELPIP’s 15 October 2026 post on moving from 7 to 9 is direct: “Your goal is to make your ideas easy to understand, not to speak as quickly as possible.” Fix: speak in chunks of four to six words with a short pause between chunks. Plan the first sentence in your preparation time so you never start cold. Our filler words page lists natural phrases that buy two seconds without a restart.
8. Whispering in the test room
Other candidates in a CELPIP room may be speaking or typing while you answer, and celpip.ca’s test-day page calls the sound of other test takers a standard test room condition. Some candidates lower their voice so as not to disturb others. CELPIP’s podcast warns against answering almost in a whisper, and says using the headset is “very similar to talking on the phone”. CELPIP’s Speaking Pro Target 9+ Study Pack (May 2026) adds that speaking too loudly or too softly can hurt Listenability, and that raters will hear you clearly at normal volume despite background noise. Fix: practise at phone-call volume with a radio playing in the next room.
Grammar habits that count under Listenability
CELPIP lists “grammar and sentence structure” and “variety of sentence structure” inside Listenability, so grammar is not a separate score you can ignore. Two habits from Punjabi, Hindi and Gujarati are frequent enough to matter across eight tasks.
9. Missing or extra articles
None of the three languages has articles like “a” and “the”, so speakers drop them (“I went to bank”, “she is nurse”) or add them where English has none (“the Canada”, “the nature”). Fix: “a” or “an” for one of many (“a bank near my house”); “the” for the one you and the listener both know (“the bank on Main Street”); nothing before most country names and general nouns (“Canada”, “nature”).
10. The progressive with state verbs
Indian English uses continuous forms more widely than Canadian English does, and the habit carries into the test: “I am having two kids”, “I am knowing him since college”, “I am not understanding”. English keeps state verbs (have for possession, know, understand, want, like, believe) in the simple form. Fix: “I have two kids”, “I have known him since college”, “I don’t understand”.
Smaller habits from the same source, each worth one sentence of attention: “since two years” for “for two years”; “today itself” and “yesterday only” for “today” and “just yesterday”; “isn’t it?” as a tag on any sentence (“you are coming, isn’t it?”) where English uses “aren’t you?” or “right?”; “would” for a definite future (“I would call you tomorrow” for “I’ll call you tomorrow”); “discuss about” for “discuss”. The Indian English mistakes page covers more of them.
Indian English words and the wrong register
11. Words a Canadian listener may not know, and stiff politeness
Indian English is a full variety of English with its own vocabulary, and nothing in CELPIP marks it down as such. The risk is precision: a rater in Canada may pause at a word that is normal in Ludhiana or Ahmedabad, and a pause is a moment when your message is not landing.
| You might say | A Canadian listener expects |
|---|---|
| prepone the meeting | move the meeting up, bring it forward |
| out of station | out of town, away |
| my cousin brother | my cousin |
| I passed out in 2019 | I graduated in 2019 |
| two lakh rupees | two hundred thousand rupees |
| do the needful | could you please sort this out |
| please revert | please reply, please get back to me |
| don’t take tension | don’t worry about it |
| I will send the same | I’ll send it |
| staying in a PG | renting a room in a shared house |
Register is the other half. CELPIP’s Level 9 descriptor asks you to adjust style and tone to “a range of audiences and situations” and lists speaking “with peers or authority figures”. Two habits get in the way. With a friend or neighbour, Indian formality (“Respected sir”, “kindly”, “I humbly request”) sounds distant. With a manager or landlord, a direct imperative that is normal in Hindi or Punjabi (“Give me the refund”, “You have to adjust”) sounds rude in Canadian English, where requests are usually made indirectly (“Would it be possible to…?”, “Could you check whether…?”). Both are scored under Task Fulfillment, which includes tone.
Content habits: memorised openers and essay answers
12. Memorised openers and essay lists
Some prep material teaches a fixed opener for every task: “Hello my dear friend, I hope you and your family are doing well.” It costs five or six seconds, carries no idea, and ignores the person and problem in the prompt, which is what Task Fulfillment’s relevance factor checks. CELPIP’s 15 October 2026 post recommends a brief outline that keeps you focused “without making your response sound memorized”. The second habit is the school essay shape: “Firstly…, secondly…, thirdly…, to sum up…”, with three points each said once. CELPIP’s Level 9 descriptor asks you to support ideas with moderately complex reasons, which means fewer points, each developed. Fix: make your first sentence about the person and the problem (“Simran, congratulations, and I can see why the evening shifts worry you”), give two or three ideas with a because and an example each, and end with one clear line of advice or a question back to the listener. The tasks page has an outline for each task, and our CELPIP Speaking guide has the overview.
One more content habit: thinking in Punjabi or Hindi and translating. It produces long pauses mid-sentence. In the preparation time, write three English keywords, not a Hindi sentence, and speak from the keywords.
Worked example: one Task 6 answer before and after
Both versions were written by TalkDrill to show the habits on this page. They are not real candidates or official CELPIP material, and we do not attach a level to them.
The prompt (TalkDrill-written, Task 6 style)
You booked the party room at your local community centre for your daughter’s birthday this Saturday, but the centre booked it twice by mistake. The manager has offered two options: a smaller room on the same day, or a full refund. Choose one and explain your decision to the manager.
Before
“Hello sir, good morning, I hope you are doing well. Myself Harpreet. Kindly listen to me. I am having the booking of this hall since two months only. This mistake is not fair, isn’t it? I am not taking the small room. Please do the needful and give me the refund on the same date itself. My all relatives are coming from Surrey and Abbotsford. You have to call me if the big hall becomes free.”
After
“Hi, thanks for calling me back. It’s Harpreet Gill. I’ve decided to take the full refund rather than the smaller room. I booked the main room two months ago for around forty guests, some of them driving in from Abbotsford, and the smaller room would be too tight for the kids and the food. I understand mistakes happen with bookings, and I appreciate you giving me a choice. Could you process the refund today, so I can book another hall while there’s still time? And if the main room does become free, would you mind calling me first?”
| Before | After | Habit | Dimension |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Hello sir, good morning, I hope you are doing well” | “Hi, thanks for calling me back” | Memorised opener | Task Fulfillment (relevance) |
| “Myself Harpreet” | “It’s Harpreet Gill” | Direct translation | Listenability (grammar) |
| “I am not taking the small room”, in the middle | “I’ve decided to take the full refund”, first | Decision buried | Content/Coherence |
| “I am having the booking since two months only” | “I booked the main room two months ago” | Progressive with a state; since for a duration; emphatic only | Listenability (grammar) |
| “This mistake is not fair, isn’t it?” | “I understand mistakes happen with bookings” | Universal tag; confrontation | Task Fulfillment (tone) |
| “do the needful”, “on the same date itself” | “Could you process the refund today” | Indian English phrases | Vocabulary |
| “My all relatives are coming” | “forty guests… too tight for the kids and the food” | Word order; a reason that is never given | Listenability (grammar), Content/Coherence |
| “You have to call me if the big hall becomes free” | “would you mind calling me first?” | Blunt imperative to an authority figure | Task Fulfillment (tone) |
Read the After version aloud with every v, w and th correct and a fall at each full stop, then run the same situation in role-play practice with the AI as a manager who asks you to reconsider the smaller room.
Five drills, ten minutes a day
Pick the two or three drills that match your recording, not all five. Two minutes each, aloud, then one recorded CELPIP task where you listen only for the habit you drilled. Lines are written by TalkDrill.
- v and w (2 min). Pairs, slowly then at speed: vest, west; vine, wine; veil, whale; vet, wet; vary, wary. Then: “We were very worried when the van went west in the wind.”
- th (2 min). Pairs: three, tree; thin, tin; think, tink; they, day; those, doze. Then: “I think these three things are worth the extra thought.”
- Clusters and z (2 min). school, station, street, small, sport, speak, study, spring; then zero, zone, busy, easy, these. Then: “The students started speaking at the small studio on Spring Street, and it was busy from zero to six.”
- Stress, chunks and the fall (2 min). Read this Task 7 answer with a pause at each slash, the bold words strong and the voice falling at each full stop: “I think / public libraries / should stay open / late on weekdays. / A lot of people / work until six, / so a library / that closes at five / is no use to them. / Late opening / costs a little more, / but it gives students / a quiet place / to study / after school.”
- Grammar swaps (2 min). Say each right-hand version three times, then use three of them in a recorded Task 1: “I am having” to “I have”; “since two years” to “for two years”; “today itself” to “today”; “you are coming, isn’t it?” to “you’re coming, right?”; “I would call you tomorrow” to “I’ll call you tomorrow”; “discuss about” to “discuss”.
For the sounds, our read-aloud practice records you and plays it back; for tone and content, role-play practice lets the AI play the friend, neighbour or manager. The 30-day plan puts these drills in week 2.
Sitting CELPIP LS in Canada for citizenship
If you are a permanent resident applying for citizenship, in Brampton, Surrey, Winnipeg or anywhere else in Canada, you take CELPIP-General LS rather than CELPIP-General, and the bar is different. IRCC’s citizenship language page asks applicants aged 18 to 54 for CLB 4 or higher in speaking and listening, and CELPIP 4 is CLB 4, which CELPIP describes as “adequate proficiency for daily life activities”. LS has the same eight Speaking tasks and the same Listening test, takes about 1 hour 10 minutes and costs CAD 199 plus tax in Canada, per celpip.ca’s citizenship page read on 21 October 2026.
At CLB 4, the sound habits above rarely decide the result for someone who has lived and worked in English in Canada. What trips people up is the format: freezing when the 30-second preparation timer starts, stopping after one sentence, or skipping a task. Do two full timed mocks of all eight tasks before the test, answer every task even if you are unsure, and keep talking to the person in the prompt until the timer is nearly done. If you are helping a parent prepare, run the tasks together in role-play practice with you or the AI playing the person in the prompt. The format page explains what happens in the room.