IELTS Speaking for Punjabi and Hindi Speakers: 10 Habits That Cost a Band, With Fixes

The short answer: what actually costs the band

Punjabi and Hindi speakers do not lose IELTS Speaking marks for having an accent. They lose them for ten specific, predictable habits, and the official band descriptors name most of them. The public IELTS Speaking Band Descriptors PDF (ielts.org, read 20 October 2026) says a Band 6 speaker's "rhythm may be affected by a lack of stress-timing", that "individual words or phonemes may be mispronounced", that "a few basic errors may persist" even at Band 8, and that at Band 7 idiomatic language is used "though inappropriacies occur". Every one of those lines describes a habit that Punjabi and Hindi speakers bring from their first language: v and w merged into one sound, retroflex t and d, unaspirated p, t and k, z said as j, equal weight on every syllable, "I am having", dropped articles, "only" and "itself" for emphasis, memorised idioms, and one-word answers in Part 1. This page takes each habit in turn: why your first language produces it, which of the four criteria it hits, the fix, a 60-second drill, and a before and after answer written by TalkDrill.

Two facts from the official pages frame everything below. Per the ielts.org Speaking format page, the test is a recorded 11 to 14 minute interview with an examiner, in three parts, marked on fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation. And the descriptors PDF carries a note that matters for anyone worried about one bad moment: "a candidate will be rated on their average performance across all parts of the test". One "wery" does not cost a band. A pattern does.

The ten habits and the criterion each one hits

The habits are TalkDrill's judgement from Punjabi and Hindi-speaking learners in our IELTS Speaking practice. IELTS publishes no first-language error data, so treat the ranking as ours. The criterion column and the quoted phrases are from the official descriptors PDF.

If you want the four criteria themselves explained band by band before you start, read our band descriptors explainer, or the Band 5 to 9 page in this module (related articles below), which quotes every line. Five of the ten habits above are pronunciation, which is why the pronunciation band is usually the lowest of the four for Punjabi and Hindi speakers in our practice, and why it is the band that moves fastest when you work on it.

Pronunciation: v and w, retroflex t and d, aspiration, z and j, rhythm

The pronunciation descriptor at Band 7 says the speaker "displays all the positive features of band 6, and some, but not all, of the positive features of band 8". The Band 8 features are: "can sustain appropriate rhythm", "flexible use of stress and intonation across long utterances", "can be easily understood throughout", and "accent has minimal effect on intelligibility". So Band 7 pronunciation is not perfect sounds. It is sounds clear enough not to interrupt the listener, plus English rhythm most of the time. Habits 1 to 4 are about the first half; habit 5 is the second half and the one most Punjabi and Hindi speakers skip.

1. v and w merged

Why it exists. Hindi and Punjabi have one sound, व, made with the lower lip near the upper teeth but without friction. English has two: v, with the teeth on the lip and a buzz, and w, with rounded lips and no teeth at all. Speakers map both English sounds onto व, so "very well" comes out as two identical consonants, and the listener hears "wery vell" or "wery well" depending on the ear. In Part 1 topics this hits "village", "weather", "work", "watch", "vehicle", "visit" and "weekend" in the first two minutes.

The fix. Two physical rules, no theory. For v: upper teeth touch the lower lip and you can feel a buzz on the lip; hold it for a second ("vvvery"). For w: lips rounded as if to whistle, teeth nowhere near the lip, and the sound starts from "oo" ("oo-eather" becomes "weather"). Practise in front of a mirror or a phone camera; you should see teeth for v and a small round mouth for w.

60-second drill. Say each pair three times, slowly, watching your mouth: "vest, west; vine, wine; veil, whale; vow, wow; verse, worse". Then the sentence: "We visited the village every winter, and the weather was very wet." Our v and w read-aloud drill scores each attempt, and the v vs w guide has more pairs.

2. Retroflex t and d, and the th sounds

Why it exists. Hindi and Punjabi have dental त, द and retroflex ट, ड, but no alveolar t or d, the English sound made with the tongue tip on the ridge just behind the upper teeth. English t and d get mapped to the retroflex pair, which gives the heavy, "curled" quality listeners describe as an Indian t. English th has no Hindi or Punjabi equivalent, so "think" becomes "tink" (dental त or aspirated थ) and "this" becomes "dis" (dental द). On their own the retroflex sounds rarely block understanding; they do mark the accent heavily, and together with "dis" and "dat" on every demonstrative they become the pattern the Band 6 line describes.

The fix. For t and d: tongue tip forward and up onto the ridge, not curled back. Say the Hindi dental त and move the tip a few millimetres back and up until it touches the ridge; that is the English sound. For th: tongue tip between the teeth, blow for "think", "three", "thought"; hum for "this", "that", "mother", "weather". Exaggerate in practice so the normal version is right under pressure.

60-second drill. "Three things I think about: this, that and the other. My mother and father both taught me to tell the truth." Mirror on the th; light tongue taps on t and d. The voiced th drill and the voiceless th drill take two minutes each.

3. No aspiration on p, t and k

Why it exists. Hindi has a four-way contrast (प, फ, ब, भ) and Punjabi keeps the unaspirated and aspirated voiceless pair. English has no such contrast, but it does aspirate p, t and k at the start of a stressed syllable: "pen", "time", "car" all begin with a puff of air. Hindi and Punjabi speakers hear English p as the unaspirated प and produce it that way. English listeners rely on that puff to tell p from b at the start of a word, so an unaspirated p is often heard as b: "pen" becomes "ben", "pack" becomes "back", "time" becomes "dime", "cold" becomes "gold". This is the single most under-noticed habit in our practice, because the speaker genuinely cannot hear the difference. The good news: the puff already exists in your language (फ, थ, ख). You only need to move it.

The fix. Hold a sheet of paper or your palm in front of your mouth. "Pen", "time", "cold" should move the paper or warm the palm; "Ben", "dime", "gold" should not. Aim the फ-type puff at every word that starts with p, t or k before a vowel.

60-second drill. "pen, Ben; pack, back; pay, bay; time, dime; town, down; cold, gold; cap, gap". Then: "I take the train to town at ten, and I keep a pen in my pocket." Paper in front of the mouth for the whole sentence. Our p, f, b and v drill covers the labial pair.

4. z said as j, and final z devoiced to s

Why it exists. The sound z (ज़) entered Hindi through Persian and Urdu and is written with a nuqta that many speakers do not pronounce. ज़ collapses into ज, so "zero" becomes "jero", "busy" becomes "bijy", "music" becomes "mujic" and "season" becomes "seejan". The opposite problem appears at the end of words: English plurals and verbs ending in z ("is", "was", "because", "days", "goes") get devoiced to a hard s, which makes "because" sound like "becos" and clips the word. Hypercorrection also happens: speakers who have been told about ज़ start saying "zunior" and "zob". Part 1 topics are full of z: "busy", "easy", "music", "crazy", "visit", "cousin", "these", "those".

The fix. z is s with the voice switched on. Say a long "sss", then add voice until it buzzes: "zzz". The tongue never touches the ridge; if it stops the air, you have made j. Put a finger on your throat: s is silent there, z buzzes. For final z in "is", "was", "because", "days", keep the buzz going to the end of the word.

60-second drill. "zealous, jealous; zest, jest; zone, Joan; zip, gyp". Then: "These days I am busy with music, so it is easy to lose track of the season." Finger on the throat for every z.

5. Syllable timing instead of stress timing

Why it exists. Hindi and Punjabi tend to give each syllable far more even time than English does. English does not: stressed syllables are long and loud, and the syllables between them are compressed, often to a schwa. "I went to the market with my brother" has three beats (WENT, MAR, BRO) and everything else is squeezed between them. A Punjabi or Hindi speaker gives all ten syllables the same length, so the sentence sounds flat, fast and slightly mechanical to a British or Australian ear, and the listener cannot tell which word matters. The Band 6 pronunciation descriptor names this exactly: "rhythm may be affected by a lack of stress-timing and/or a rapid speech rate". Band 8 asks for the opposite: "can sustain appropriate rhythm". This is the habit that holds a speaker with clear individual sounds at Band 6. Punjabi speakers have an extra layer: Punjabi is tonal, and the pitch patterns of Punjabi words sometimes carry into English as a rise and fall that English listeners hear as emphasis in the wrong place. The fix for both is the same.

The fix. Pick the content words (nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and make them longer and louder. Shrink the function words (to, the, of, and, a, with, my) to almost nothing: "t'the", "uv", "'n". Slow down overall; English rhythm needs time for the long syllables. Word stress inside long words follows the same rule: "deVELopment", not "deveLOPment"; "comFORTable", not "comforTABLE".

60-second drill. Tap the table on the capitals only: "I WENT to the MARket with my BROther. We BOUGHT some VEGetables and CAME HOME." Then say it at normal speed keeping the taps. The word stress read-aloud drill and the schwa guide for Indian speakers go deeper.

Grammar: "I am having", dropped articles, "only" and "itself"

The grammatical range and accuracy descriptor at Band 7 reads: "both simple and complex sentences are used effectively despite some errors. A few basic errors persist." At Band 6: "though errors frequently occur in complex structures, these rarely impede communication." The difference between the two is not whether you make errors. It is whether the same basic error appears in every second sentence. The three habits below are exactly that kind of error: invisible to you, obvious to the examiner, and fixed by attention rather than study.

6. Progressive for states

Why it exists. Hindi and Punjabi do not draw the English line between an action verb and a state verb, and spoken Indian English has long extended the progressive to states, so "mere do bhai hain" comes out as "I am having two brothers", "I am knowing him since childhood", "I am belonging to Jalandhar", "I am liking cricket". English keeps have (possession), know, belong, like, want, understand, mean and believe in the simple form. The examiner hears a basic error, and because family, hometown and likes are the first three Part 1 topics, hears it early and often.

The fix. Memorise the short list that never takes -ing in your answers: have (for possession and family), know, belong, like, love, want, need, understand, mean, believe, prefer. "I have two brothers." "I have known him since school." "I belong to Jalandhar." If the verb is an action you can watch happening (study, work, live, prepare), the progressive is fine: "I am studying for my final year."

60-second drill. Describe your family in five sentences with no -ing on a state verb, then your hometown in five. "I have a joint family. My father owns a shop. I know everyone on our street. I like the quiet. I want to come back after my degree."

7. Articles dropped

Why it exists. Hindi and Punjabi have no articles. "Main college jaata hoon" needs no "the" or "a", and the English sentence comes out the same way: "I go to college by bus" (fine in British English) but also "I live in joint family", "I am student of B.Tech", "my father is government employee", "I want to study in UK". Each one is a small error, but there are a lot of singular countable nouns in eleven minutes of speech, and the pattern repeats.

The fix. One rule covers most cases in the test: a singular countable noun never stands alone. It takes a or an (first mention, or one of many), the (both of you know which one), or a possessive (my, our). "I live in a joint family." "I am a student." "My father is a government employee." "I want to study in the UK." Countries with "the": the UK, the USA, the UAE, the Netherlands, the Philippines. Countries without: Canada, Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand.

60-second drill. Say your standard introduction (name, city, study or work, family, one hobby) and count the singular countable nouns on your fingers. Each one must have a, an, the or a possessive in front of it. Record it, listen, repeat once.

8. "only" and "itself" for emphasis

Why it exists. Hindi "hi" and Punjabi "hi" or "ee" are emphatic particles that attach to the word they stress: "kal hi", "yahin", "Ludhiana mein hi". Indian English translates them as "only" and "itself": "I came yesterday only", "we have a hospital in our town itself", "he is like that only". To a British or Australian examiner "yesterday only" means nothing, or means "not before yesterday", and "in our town itself" sounds like a misplaced reflexive. The lexical resource descriptor for Band 6 is the one this triggers: "vocabulary use may be inappropriate but meaning is clear". It is not a serious error. It is a frequent one, and frequency is what the descriptor counts.

The fix. Delete "only" and "itself" when they are doing the job of "hi". If you need the emphasis, use "just" ("I came just yesterday"), "right" ("right here in our town"), or put stress on the word ("I came YESterday"). The one exception: "only" meaning "nothing more than" is correct English ("I only have one brother").

60-second drill. Say five sentences about your week with no "only" and no "itself", using stress instead: "I came back on SUNday. The market is right NEXT to our house. My brother is like that; he never changes."

Lexis and strategy: memorised idioms and one-word Part 1 answers

9. Memorised idioms

Why it exists. In our experience, many coaching centres in Punjab and the Hindi belt teach lists of idioms "for Band 7": "once in a blue moon", "a piece of cake", "burning the midnight oil", "the apple of my eye", "in a nutshell", "every cloud has a silver lining". The descriptors do reward idiomatic language, but read the Band 7 line in full: "some ability to use less common and idiomatic items and an awareness of style and collocation is evident though inappropriacies occur". The key words are "awareness of style". An idiom planted in a sentence where no native speaker would put it is an inappropriacy, and the same handful of idioms turns up in recording after recording in our practice; an idiom every candidate uses is not "less common". There is a fluency cost as well: the Band 7 fluency descriptor says hesitation that "indicate[s] problems with accessing appropriate language" is still acceptable only if it does not affect coherence, and the half-second while you retrieve "once in a blue moon" is exactly that kind of hesitation. Finally, the descriptors note says the examiner rates "average performance"; a sudden Band 8 idiom inside Band 6 grammar does not lift the average, it stands out.

The fix. Replace the idiom list with a collocation list. These earn "less common" credit and never sound planted: "I hardly ever", "it took me ages", "I am quite into", "a bit of a", "I tend to", "it is not really my thing", "on the whole", "to be honest", "I cannot stand", "it depends on". Use an idiom only if you would say it to a friend in a WhatsApp voice note without thinking. Our vocabulary and idioms page in this module (related articles below) lists idioms with a when-not-to-use column for each.

60-second drill. Answer "How often do you go to the cinema?" three ways, no idioms: with "hardly ever", with "I tend to", with "it depends on". Then once more with "once in a blue moon" and listen to the difference in your own pause.

10. One-word answers in Part 1

Why it exists. Two things, in our experience. First, politeness: many candidates tell us they were brought up to answer an elder or an official briefly and wait to be asked more. Second, nerves and translation: a short answer is safe. In IELTS the opposite is true. The fluency and coherence descriptor at Band 6 asks for "a willingness to produce long turns" and at Band 7 for the ability to "readily produce long turns without noticeable effort". "Yes." "Delhi." "Since childhood." give the examiner nothing to rate up.

The fix. Answer, reason, example. Two to three sentences, every time, including for yes or no questions. Our rule of thumb in practice is that an answer of fifteen to twenty-five seconds is long enough; stop when you have given the example. Do not pad with "that is a very interesting question"; the examiner asks the same questions all day.

60-second drill. Take four Part 1 questions from our Part 1 questions and answers and answer each in exactly three sentences: the answer, the reason, one example. Time yourself; aim for the fifteen to twenty-five second window.

Before and after: a Part 1 answer and a Part 2 opening

Below are two longer examples that carry several habits at once, as they appear in real practice. Both are written by TalkDrill as teaching examples; they are not transcripts of real candidates and the band comments are our estimate of how the descriptors would apply, not an official score. The Part 2 card is in the current format and written by us; it is not a leaked or "actual" card.

Part 1: "Do you prefer to study in the morning or in the evening?"

Before: "Evening only. Because in morning I am having college, so I am studying in evening itself. It is wery peaceful at dat time."

What the examiner hears: "only" and "itself" (habit 8), "I am having" twice (habit 6), "in morning" with no article (habit 7), "wery" and "dat" (habits 1 and 2), and a short turn. Our estimate: Band 5.5 to 6 across the four criteria.

After: "The evening, definitely. I have college in the morning, so the only time I can really concentrate is after dinner. The house is quieter then, and I find I remember more of what I read late at night than anything I try to read at seven in the morning."

Same content, same speaker. The grammar is error-free, "the only time" uses "only" correctly, the turn is three sentences with a reason and a contrast, and the pronunciation targets are v in "evening" and "seven", th in "the" and "then", and stress on "DEFinitely", "CONcentrate", "QUIeter". Our estimate: Band 7 if the rhythm holds.

Part 2 opening: "Describe a person who taught you a useful skill"

Before: "I am going to talk about my uncle who is teaching me driving. He is wery patient person and he is knowing everything about cars. He taught me in Ludhiana itself, last year only, and in a nutshell it was once in a blue moon experience."

After: "I would like to talk about my uncle, who taught me to drive last summer. He is a very patient person, and he knows a lot about cars because he ran a workshop in Ludhiana for twenty years. He taught me on the quiet roads behind our colony, early in the morning, and to be honest I learnt more about staying calm from him than about driving."

Notice what changed: "who taught" instead of "who is teaching" (a past event), "a very patient person" with its article, "he knows" not "he is knowing", "in Ludhiana" without "itself", "last summer" without "only", and the two memorised idioms replaced by one natural phrase ("to be honest") and a specific detail (the workshop, the quiet roads) that gives the examiner lexical resource to credit. For the full two-minute structure, see the Part 2 cue card guide and the current-cycle cue card page in this module.

A fourteen-day drill route

Twenty minutes a day. The order matters: rhythm first, because it changes how everything else sounds; grammar in the middle, because it needs the most repetitions; strategy last, because it is the quickest to fix once the rest is in place.

If you have more than two weeks, the 30-day Band 7 plan in this module builds this into a full route, and our Band 7 tips article covers what the target sounds like. If pronunciation is the only band holding you back after a real test, the One Skill Retake (per ielts.org: IELTS on Computer tests only, once per original test, sat within 60 days of your full test; INR 12,650 per the IDP India One Skill Retake page) lets you redo Speaking alone; our results and retake page in this module has the rules and who accepts it.

Notes for Punjabi speakers in particular

Most of this page applies equally to Punjabi and Hindi speakers, but three things in our practice are more marked among candidates from Punjab and Haryana, and they are worth naming separately. All three are TalkDrill's judgement.

• Tone carried into English. Punjabi uses pitch to distinguish words (the historical voiced aspirates became tones), and in our recordings Punjabi speakers often use a wider pitch range in English than Hindi speakers do. That can be an asset: English listeners hear a lively voice. It becomes a cost when the pitch jumps land on function words or on the wrong syllable, so that "I went to the MARket" comes out as "I WENT TO the market". The rhythm drill above fixes this; let the pitch rise only on the stressed syllable of the content word.
• Vowel insertion in s-clusters. "School" as "sakool" or "iskool", "station" as "sateshan", "sport" as "saport". Punjabi words do not begin with s plus a consonant, so a vowel gets inserted. Fix: hold the s for a full second, then release straight into the next consonant with no vowel: "ssss-kool". This habit is more common among South Indian speakers inside words; our South Indian page (related articles below) covers the inside-word version.
• "Isn't it?" and "na?" as universal tags. Punjabi "na?" and "hai na?" attach to any statement, and Indian English carries them as "isn't it?" regardless of the verb: "You have been to Chandigarh, isn't it?" In Part 3, where you are expected to argue, a tag after every opinion sounds like you are asking the examiner to agree. Fix: drop the tag entirely in Part 3; in Parts 1 and 2 match the verb if you use one ("haven't you?", "doesn't it?").

One more practical note. Wherever you sit the test in Punjab, Haryana or Delhi, per the IDP India fee page (read 20 October 2026) the test in India is now IELTS on Computer or the Writing on Paper hybrid at INR 19,000; our fees, dates and booking page in this module has the state-by-state list and how to choose your Speaking slot. Whichever centre you choose, the examiner is a trained human, the interview is recorded, and the descriptors above are the only thing being applied to your voice. The IELTS Speaking hub links every page in this module, and the test guide covers the day itself.