The short answer: what actually costs the band
Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada speakers lose IELTS Speaking marks for a different set of habits from North Indian candidates, and most pages written "for Indian students" miss them. Dravidian languages have a full retroflex series, tend to break up the consonant clusters English stacks, tend to close words with a vowel, and, in our recordings, their speakers often carry a rising tune to the end of an English statement. Each of those habits maps onto a line in the public IELTS Speaking Band Descriptors PDF (ielts.org, read 20 October 2026): "individual words or phonemes may be mispronounced", "some effective use of intonation and stress, but this is not sustained", "rhythm may be affected by a lack of stress-timing". Add three habits that are about grammar and style rather than sound, tense drift inside a story, written register in casual Part 1 answers, and the "la", "aa" and "no?" fillers, and you have the eight habits on this page. For each one you get why it exists in your language, the criterion it hits, the fix, a 60-second drill and a before and after answer written by TalkDrill.
The frame, from the official pages: 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. The descriptors PDF adds that "a candidate will be rated on their average performance across all parts of the test", so a single "bussu" is not a band; a pattern is.
- It is for four Dravidian first languages only, with a table showing which habit is stronger in which language.
- Each habit is tied to the line of the official descriptors it triggers, so you know whether you are losing pronunciation, grammar or lexical marks.
- Each habit has a 60-second drill and a before and after answer in the current Part 1 and Part 2 format.
- Our other first-language pages, listed in the related articles below and on the IELTS Speaking hub, cover Punjabi and Hindi speakers and Vietnamese, Arabic and Tagalog speakers.
The eight habits and the criterion each one hits
The habits and their order are TalkDrill's judgement from Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada-speaking learners in our IELTS Speaking practice. The criterion column and quoted phrases are from the official descriptors PDF.
| # | Habit | Criterion it hits | Descriptor line it triggers | Fix in one line |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Retroflex t, d, n, l; th as t or d | Pronunciation | Band 6: "individual words or phonemes may be mispronounced" | Tongue tip forward on the ridge; between the teeth for th |
| 2 | Vowel inserted into clusters: "filim", "sterength", "worruld" | Pronunciation | Band 6, as above; Band 4 if it causes "lack of clarity" | Glide the consonants together with no vowel between |
| 3 | Final vowel added: "bussu", "pennu", "cuttu" | Pronunciation | Band 6, as above | Stop the voice on the final consonant |
| 4 | Rising tune on statements | Pronunciation | Band 6: intonation "not sustained"; Band 8: "flexible use of stress and intonation" | Fall on the last stressed word of every statement |
| 5 | "la", "aa", "no?" as fillers and tags | Fluency and coherence, lexical resource | Band 5: "overuse of certain discourse markers"; Band 6: vocabulary "inappropriate" | English fillers or silence; matched tags |
| 6 | Tense drift inside a story; "since" and "from" confused | Grammatical range and accuracy | Band 6: "errors frequently occur in complex structures"; Band 7: "a few basic errors persist" | Pick the tense in sentence one and hold it |
| 7 | Written register in Part 1: "I hail from", "pursued my graduation" | Lexical resource | Band 7 needs "an awareness of style" | Say what you would say to a colleague |
| 8 | Equal syllable weight; stress on the wrong syllable in long words | Pronunciation | Band 6: "a lack of stress-timing" | Stressed syllable long and loud, the rest reduced |
Five of the eight are pronunciation. That is why, in our practice, the pronunciation band is the one most often a half band or a full band below the other three for South Indian candidates, and why it is the band that responds fastest to two weeks of targeted work. For the four criteria themselves band by band, read our band descriptors explainer, or the Band 5 to 9 page in this module (related articles below), which quotes every line.
Pronunciation: retroflex sounds, vowels in clusters, added final vowels
The Band 7 pronunciation descriptor says the speaker "displays all the positive features of band 6, and some, but not all, of the positive features of band 8", and the Band 8 features are rhythm, flexible stress and intonation, being "easily understood throughout", and an accent with "minimal effect on intelligibility". The three habits in this section are the ones that stop a South Indian speaker being "easily understood throughout"; habits 4 and 8 later are the rhythm and intonation half.
1. Retroflex t, d, n and l, and the th sounds
Why it exists. Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada all have a full retroflex series (ട, ட, ట, ಟ and their voiced, nasal and lateral partners) made with the tongue tip curled back, and a dental series made with the tip on the teeth. English t, d, n and l sit between the two, on the alveolar ridge, and get mapped onto the retroflex set. The result is the heavy "curled" consonant that marks South Indian English most strongly to a British ear; in our practice, Malayalam speakers in particular often carry a retroflex l into words like "well" and "school" and a retroflex n into "ten" and "run". The th sounds have no equivalent, so "think" becomes "tink" and "they" becomes "dey". On their own, retroflex consonants rarely block understanding, but together with "dey" and "dat" on every demonstrative they are the pattern behind the Band 6 line "individual words or phonemes may be mispronounced".
The fix. Tongue tip forward and up, touching the ridge just behind the upper teeth, never curled back. A useful trick: say the dental த or ത, then slide the tip back a few millimetres until it leaves the teeth; stop there. For th: tip between the teeth, blow for "think", "three", "thought"; hum for "this", "that", "they", "mother".
60-second drill. "Ten little children ran down the lane to the temple and back." Light taps on every t, d, n and l, tip on the ridge. Then: "I think they thought the third one was the best." Mirror on the th. The voiced th and voiceless th drills each take two minutes.
Before and after (TalkDrill example, Part 1: "Did you like school?")
Before (as heard): "Yes, I liked my schooL a lot, dey were teaching us well, and I tink de teachers were kind." After: "Yes, I liked my school a lot. The teaching was good, and I think the teachers were kind."
2. A vowel inserted into consonant clusters
Why it exists. Dravidian languages prefer a consonant to be followed by a vowel. Where English stacks consonants ("film", "strength", "world", "friends", "months"), the first language inserts a short vowel to break the stack: "filim", "sterength" or "istrength", "worruld", "frien-dus", "mont-hus". The inserted vowel changes the syllable count of the word, and a British or Australian listener hears a different word or an extra one. In Part 2 and Part 3 the common victims are "film", "world", "strength", "friends", "problem" ("probalam"), "children" ("childaren") and "government" ("governament").
The fix. Say the cluster slowly as one movement, not two. For "film": hold the l, then close the lips for m while the l is still sounding; there is no gap for a vowel to fill. For "strength": a long "sss", then straight into "tr" with no release. Record the word, count the syllables you hear; "film" and "world" are one syllable each, "problem" is two, "government" is three.
60-second drill. "film, world, friends, months, strength, problem, children, government". Say each one, clap once per syllable, and aim for one, one, one, one, one, two, two, three. Then the sentence: "My friends and I watched a film about the problems children face around the world." Our consonant cluster drill scores it.
Before and after (TalkDrill example, Part 3: "What problems do children face today?")
Before (as heard): "The main probalam is that childaren are spending too much time on screens, and the governament is not doing much." After: "The main problem is that children spend too much time on screens, and the government is not doing much about it."
3. A vowel added to the end of words
Why it exists. Malayalam ends almost every word with a vowel, and the half-vowel (samvruthokaram) that closes words like "avanu" is so automatic that it attaches itself to English words: "bus" becomes "bussu", "pen" becomes "pennu", "cut" becomes "cuttu", "night" becomes "nightu". In our practice Tamil and Kannada speakers do the same more lightly, mainly after final t, d and s. The effect on the listener is an extra syllable on every short word, which breaks the rhythm of a sentence and, at speed, makes "what" sound like "whatta" and "yes" like "yessa". It also makes the plural s and past tense -ed endings harder to hear, which has a knock-on cost in grammar: "I walked" with an added vowel sounds like "I walk-ed-u" or simply gets lost.
The fix. Finish the word on the consonant with the voice switched off. For "bus": the s is the last thing the listener hears, and your lips and tongue stay where they are for a beat after it. A good physical check: put a finger on your throat; after the final s of "bus" or the t of "cut" there should be no vibration at all.
60-second drill. "bus, pen, cut, night, yes, what, job, big". Say each word and freeze on the final consonant for one second, silent. Then: "Yes, what I like about my job is that the bus at night is not crowded." The past tense -ed drill and the plural s drill target the two endings that matter most for grammar.
Before and after (TalkDrill example, Part 1: "How do you get to work?")
Before (as heard): "By bussu. It is a bittu far, so I leave at eightu and reach by nine-u." After: "By bus. It is a bit far, so I leave at eight and get there by nine."
Intonation and fillers: rising statements, "la", "aa" and "no?"
4. A rising tune at the end of statements
Why it exists. In our recordings, speakers of Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada often end an ordinary English statement on a rise or a level-high pitch, a tune carried over from the way statements are spoken at home. English works differently: statements fall, yes/no questions rise, and a rising statement signals either a question or uncertainty. So when a Tamil speaker says "I am from Madurai" on a rise, the examiner hears "I am from Madurai?" and waits for more, or hears a speaker who is unsure of the fact. Across eleven minutes, every answer sounds tentative, and in Part 3, where you are supposed to argue a position, tentative is expensive. The descriptors put it plainly: Band 6 has "some effective use of intonation and stress, but this is not sustained"; Band 8 has "flexible use of stress and intonation across long utterances". A sustained rise on statements is intonation not doing its job.
The fix. Find the last stressed word of the statement and step the pitch down on it: "I am from MaDUrai" with the voice dropping on "DU" and staying low on "rai". Keep the rise for genuine yes/no questions and for the items in a list before the last one ("I like cricket, football and chess", rising on cricket and football, falling on chess).
60-second drill. Say five facts about yourself with a hand gesture that drops on the last stressed word: "My name is Divya. I am from Kochi. I work in a hospital. I have one sister. I like reading." Then say the same five as questions, rising, and feel the difference. Our intonation patterns guide has longer sets.
Before and after (TalkDrill example, Part 3: "Is it better to live in a city or a village?")
Before (rising on every clause): "I think the city is better? Because there are more jobs? And the hospitals are closer?" After (falling on "BETter", "JOBS", "CLOser"): "I think the city is better. There are more jobs, and the hospitals are closer, which matters for older people."
5. "la", "aa" and "no?" as fillers and tags
Why it exists. Tamil speakers carry "-la" (a locative and emphatic particle) and "-aa" (the yes/no question marker) into English: "In Chennai-la it is very hot", "You went there-aa?". Telugu and Kannada speakers carry "-aa" in the same way, and all four groups use "no?" as a universal tag ("It is far, no?") and "means" as a filler ("Means, I want to say"). Each one is a word from your first language doing a job English does differently. The fluency and coherence descriptor at Band 5 names "overuse of certain discourse markers, connectives and other cohesive features"; the Band 6 lexical resource line names vocabulary that is "inappropriate but meaning is clear". Neither is a disaster, and both are frequent, which is what the examiner averages.
The fix. Three substitutions. "-aa" as a question: use rising intonation on an English question form ("Did you go there?"). "-la": drop it; the preposition already does the job ("In Chennai it is very hot"). "no?": drop it in Part 3, and in Parts 1 and 2 use a matched tag if you must ("It is far, isn't it?"). For "means" and "actually" as fillers, replace with a half-second of silence or with "well", "I suppose", "to be honest".
60-second drill. Record a one-minute answer to "Describe your hometown" and count every "la", "aa", "no?" and "means". Re-record with each one removed. Then once more with "well" or a pause in the places where you still feel the gap.
Before and after (TalkDrill example, Part 1: "Is your hometown a good place to live?")
Before: "Means, Coimbatore-la the weather is good, no? And the people are friendly also, so it is a good place, I feel." After: "Well, the weather in Coimbatore is pleasant most of the year, and people are friendly, so yes, I would say it is a good place to live."
Grammar and register: tense consistency and "I hail from"
6. Tense drift inside a story, and "since" versus "from"
Why it exists. Dravidian languages mark tense clearly, so this is not a gap in the first language. It is a processing habit: under time pressure in Part 2, a speaker who opened in the past tense slides into the present as the story becomes vivid ("Last year I went to Munnar and we are staying in a small cottage and my friend is cooking"), then back to the past for the ending. A second, related habit is "from" for duration: "I am working here from 2022" (Malayalam and Tamil both use a single postposition for "from" and "since"). The grammatical range and accuracy descriptor is forgiving of complexity errors at Band 6 ("errors frequently occur in complex structures") and of a few basic errors at Band 7 ("a few basic errors persist"), but tense drift across a whole two-minute story counts as many errors, not one.
The fix. Decide the tense in your one minute of preparation and write the anchor verb at the top of your notes ("went"). Every sentence in the narrative part of the talk keeps that tense; switch only when the time frame changes, and signal the switch ("Even now, I still..."). For duration: "since" plus a point in time ("since 2022", "since January"), "for" plus a length ("for three years"), and never "from" for either in a present perfect sentence. "I have been working here since 2022."
60-second drill. Tell a thirty-second story about last weekend with every verb in the past simple; then say three sentences about your job or studies with "since", "for" and "have been" correctly placed. Record both and count the slips.
Before and after (TalkDrill example, Part 2: "Describe a trip you enjoyed")
Before: "Two years back I went to Wayanad with my cousins. We are staying in a homestay and the owner is making food for us, and I am working in Kochi from 2023 so it was a big relief." After: "Two years ago I went to Wayanad with my cousins. We stayed in a homestay and the owner cooked for us. I have been working in Kochi since 2023, so the break was a big relief."
7. Written register in casual Part 1 answers
Why it exists. Many candidates from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana and Karnataka learnt their English mostly through reading and writing, and the spoken forms they reach for under pressure are the ones they have written in applications and essays: "I hail from Thrissur", "I pursued my graduation in commerce", "my native place", "I am residing at", "my father is working as a government servant", "respected sir/madam", "I would like to express". None of these is a grammar error, which is why they are rarely corrected. But Part 1 is written to be a casual conversation about your home, work and hobbies, and the lexical resource descriptor for Band 7 asks for "an awareness of style and collocation". An answer that sounds like a cover letter shows the opposite. These exact phrases also appear in a large share of the practice recordings we hear, and a stock phrase reads as memorised rather than fluent.
The fix. A direct swap list: "I hail from" to "I am from"; "pursued my graduation" to "did my degree"; "my native place" to "my hometown"; "I am residing at" to "I live in"; "working as a government servant" to "works for the state government"; "respected examiner" to nothing at all (just answer); "I would like to express" to "I think". Keep the more formal register for Part 3, where the questions are abstract and a careful style fits.
60-second drill. Say your standard introduction (name, hometown, what you do, family, a hobby) as if to a colleague at lunch, not to an interview panel. Record it, listen for every written phrase, swap it, and record again.
Before and after (TalkDrill example, Part 1: "Where are you from?")
Before: "Respected examiner, I hail from Thrissur, which is my native place, and presently I am residing at Kochi for the purpose of my employment." After: "I am from Thrissur originally, but I live in Kochi now because of work."
8. Equal syllable weight and misplaced word stress
Why it exists. Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada are usually described as syllable-timed and do not use stress to tell words apart the way English does, so English stress is both hard to hear and hard to place. Two effects follow. In sentences, every syllable gets the same length, which the Band 6 descriptor names directly: "rhythm may be affected by a lack of stress-timing and/or a rapid speech rate". In long words, the stress lands on the wrong syllable: "deveLOPment", "ecoNOmy", "comforTABLE", "photoGRAphy", "cateGOry". Part 3 topics are full of these words.
The fix. In sentences, choose the content words and make them long and loud; shrink the function words. In long words, learn the stressed syllable with the word: "deVELopment", "eCONomy", "COMfortable", "phoTOGraphy", "eduCAtion", "CATegory". A useful pattern for the test: words ending in -tion, -sion and -ic stress the syllable before the ending; words ending in -ity stress the syllable before -ity ("univerSIty" is wrong, "uniVERsity" is right).
60-second drill. Tap on the capitals: "The eCONomy of my STATE dePENDS on TOURism and IT." Then ten long words from your Part 3 topic with the stress marked and said three times each. The word stress read-aloud drill and the word stress rules guide go further.
Before and after (TalkDrill example, Part 3: "How has education changed in your country?")
Before (equal syllables, stress misplaced): "Edu-ca-tion-has-be-come-more-tech-no-LO-gy-dri-ven-and-the-go-vern-MENT-is-in-ves-ting." After (beats in capitals): "EduCAtion has become much more techNOLogy-driven, and the GOVernment is inVESTing in it."
Language by language: what is stronger in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada
The eight habits are shared, but not equally. The table below is TalkDrill's judgement from our practice and from the research behind this module; it is not official data, and individual speakers vary with schooling and city.
| Language | Strongest habits (work on these first) | Also watch |
|---|---|---|
| Malayalam | Final vowel added (habit 3); retroflex l and n (habit 1); equal syllable weight (habit 8) | v and w merged ("vindow"); "measure" and "pleasure" said with "j" instead of the "zh" of "vision"; "itself" and "the same" from written Kerala English |
| Tamil | Rising statements (habit 4); "la" and "aa" (habit 5); vowel inside clusters (habit 2) | Voicing slips in p/b, t/d, k/g, because Tamil spelling does not separate them: "bag" heard as "pack", "copy" as "cobby"; s and sh swapped ("she" for "sea") |
| Telugu | Vowel inside clusters (habit 2); misplaced word stress (habit 8); written register (habit 7) | s and sh swapped; long vowels where English has short ones ("sheep" for "ship"); "aa" tag |
| Kannada | Final vowel added after t and d (habit 3); rising statements (habit 4); tense drift (habit 6) | "aa" tag and "no?"; h dropped or added ("ouse", "hour" with a sounded h) |
Nurses from Kerala deciding between IELTS and OET should read our OET hub: the same pronunciation habits apply in both tests, but OET adds clinical communication criteria that IELTS does not have. Per the NMC accepted English language tests page (read 20 October 2026), the NMC requires IELTS Academic Speaking 7 or OET Speaking B. For the pronunciation habits alone, our South Indian pronunciation guide has longer drill sets.
Before and after: a Part 1 answer and a Part 2 opening
Two longer examples carrying several habits at once. 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: "What do you do in your free time?"
Before (habits marked in the comment): "Means, in my free time I am mostly watching filims, no? And I am going out with my friendus to the beach-la, and sometimes reading also. Presently I am residing at Chennai only, so the beach is close."
What the examiner hears: "means" and "no?" (habit 5), "filims" and "friendus" (habit 2), "beach-la" (habit 5), "presently I am residing" (habit 7), a rise on every clause (habit 4) and a stray "only". Our estimate: Band 5.5 to 6.
After: "Mostly films. I watch two or three a week, usually Tamil or Malayalam ones, and at the weekend I go to the beach with friends because I live in Chennai and it is only twenty minutes away. I read a bit as well, but films are the main thing."
What changed: one filler ("mostly") doing the job of three; "films" and "friends" as one syllable each; "I live in Chennai"; "only twenty minutes" using "only" correctly; and three statements that fall at the end ("FILMS", "aWAY", "MAIN thing"). Our estimate: Band 7 if the falls and the clusters hold.
Part 2 opening: "Describe a place near water that you like to visit"
Before: "I would like to describe about Marari beach, which is my favourite place. It is located in Alappuzha district, which is my native place. I am going there from childhood, and last time we are going there in monsoon and the waves are very big."
After: "I would like to talk about Marari beach, which is near Alappuzha, my hometown. I have been going there since I was a child. The last time was during the monsoon, and the waves were huge, so we just sat under the coconut trees and watched."
Notice what changed: "describe about" to "talk about", "native place" to "hometown", "from childhood" to "since I was a child", and the whole second half held in the past tense with one clear time marker. The structure for the rest of the two minutes is in the Part 2 cue card guide and on the current-cycle cue card page in this module; a card on this exact topic is in our practice set.
A fourteen-day drill route
Twenty minutes a day. Intonation and rhythm first, because they change how every other sound is heard; the three consonant habits next; grammar and register last, because once you can hear yourself the swaps are quick.
| Days | Focus | Daily twenty minutes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Falling statements and rhythm (habits 4 and 8) | Five minutes of the five-facts drill with the hand gesture; ten minutes reading a short passage aloud in the read-aloud tool with beats tapped; five minutes answering two Part 1 questions with a deliberate fall on each statement. |
| 4 to 6 | Clusters and final vowels (habits 2 and 3) | The cluster list with claps; the final-consonant freeze drill; the -ed and plural s drills; two Part 1 answers recorded and checked for added vowels. |
| 7 to 8 | Retroflex and th (habit 1) | Tongue-position drills with a mirror; one Part 2 card recorded; count the "dey", "dat" and heavy l sounds. |
| 9 to 10 | Tense and duration (habit 6) | Two thirty-second past-tense stories a day with the anchor verb written first; five "since / for / have been" sentences about work or study. |
| 11 to 12 | Register and fillers (habits 5 and 7) | Record the standard introduction and two hometown answers; swap every written phrase and every "la", "aa", "no?" and "means"; re-record. |
| 13 | Part 3 under pressure | Six Part 3 questions from our Part 3 questions and answers, each answered with a falling final clause and no tag. |
| 14 | Full mock | The full three-part AI mock with the real timings, then the criterion-by-criterion estimate; note which of the eight habits still appear and repeat that day's drill. |
With 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. Two logistics facts for Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra and Karnataka candidates: per the IDP India fee page (read 20 October 2026) IELTS in India is IELTS on Computer or the Writing on Paper hybrid at INR 19,000, because "IELTS on Paper has been discontinued"; and if pronunciation alone drags the result down, 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 page) lets you redo Speaking without the other three papers. Our fees and booking page and results and retake page in this module have the detail, and the IELTS Speaking hub links every page in this module.