Hindi-English False Friends: The Complete Hinglish Guide

1Indian English is a variety, not a mistake

This guide has to start differently from the others in this series, because the premise is different.

Indian English is a fully established variety with around 130 million speakers, its own newspapers, courts, universities and literature. It is not learner English and its distinctive features are not errors. "Prepone", "do the needful" and "lakh" are correct Indian English used by educated speakers every day, and India has more English speakers than England.

The distinction matters when the audience is not Indian — an international job interview, an email to a client in Toronto, an IELTS or CELPIP exam, a conversation with an Australian colleague. In those settings some perfectly correct Indian English will not land, and knowing which parts is worth more than being told to change how you speak.

Within India, none of this needs changing. The vocabulary in this guide is efficient, established and understood by everyone around you. This is a guide to code-switching, not to correction.

Tip: As you read, sort each item into one of two boxes: "a foreigner will not know this" and "a foreigner will misunderstand this". The second box is the one that matters.

2Words that exist only in Indian English

These are genuine, useful words that simply do not exist outside South Asia. A foreigner will not misunderstand them — they will draw a blank.

• cousin brother / cousin sister — say cousin, and add "my aunt's son" if the relationship matters
• co-brother / co-sister — brother-in-law's or sister-in-law's spouse; no English equivalent, explain it
• eve teasing — say street harassment; the Indian term sounds euphemistic to foreign ears
• hotel — in much of India any restaurant; elsewhere strictly a place to sleep
• out of station — say out of town or away
• passing out — graduating in India; elsewhere it means fainting
• batchmate — say classmate or colleague from the same year
• timepass — a wonderful word with no equivalent; say killing time
• updation — say updating; updation is not used outside India
• airdash — say fly there urgently

Tip: "Passing out" is the one to fix first for an international CV. "I passed out in 2019" reads to a foreign recruiter as a medical event rather than a graduation.

3English words Hindi borrowed and changed

This group is subtler, because the word exists in both varieties and only the meaning has moved.

• mobile — correct in Britain and India; Americans say cell phone
• boot / dickie — the car boot is British and Indian; Americans say trunk
• capsicum — say bell pepper in America, pepper in Britain
• brinjal — say aubergine (UK) or eggplant (US)
• ladyfinger — say okra
• curd — say yoghurt outside India
• biodata — say CV or résumé
• convent-educated — meaningless abroad; just name the school or say English-medium
• rubber — an eraser in India and Britain; in America it means a condom
• chappals — say sandals or flip-flops

4The 20 that confuse foreigners most

Ranked by how often they appear and how badly they derail an international conversation. Each line gives the Indian English, and what a foreign listener needs instead.

• prepone — 'Can we prepone it?' → 'Can we move it earlier?'
• revert — 'I will revert shortly' → 'I will get back to you shortly'
• do the needful — 'Please do the needful' → 'Please take care of it'
• passing out — 'I passed out in 2019' → 'I graduated in 2019'
• hotel — 'We ate at a hotel' → 'We ate at a restaurant'
• out of station — 'He is out of station' → 'He is out of town'
• cousin brother — 'My cousin brother came' → 'My cousin came'
• rubber — 'Can I borrow a rubber?' → 'Can I borrow an eraser?'
• lakh — 'It costs five lakh' → 'It costs 500,000'
• crore — 'Two crore rupees' → 'Twenty million rupees'
• biodata — 'Please send your biodata' → 'Please send your CV'
• cover — 'Put it in a cover' → 'Put it in a bag'
• curd — 'I had curd with rice' → 'I had yoghurt with rice'
• capsicum — 'Add capsicum' → 'Add bell pepper'
• aunty — 'Ask that aunty' (a stranger) → 'Ask that lady'
• timepass — 'It was just timepass' → 'It was just to kill time'
• batchmate — 'He is my batchmate' → 'He was in my year'
• same to same — 'They are same to same' → 'They are identical'
• years back — 'Two years back' → 'Two years ago'
• what is your good name? → 'What is your name?'

Tip: The last one is worth a note. "What is your good name?" is a direct rendering of आपका शुभ नाम क्या है and is warm and courteous in India. Abroad it sounds odd rather than polite, and simply "What's your name?" carries the same warmth in tone of voice.

5Family, home and daily life

Kinship vocabulary is where Hindi is far more precise than English, and where the mismatch is most frustrating.

• चाचा / ताऊ / मामा / फूफा — English has only 'uncle' for all four
• बुआ / मौसी / चाची / मामी — English has only 'aunt'
• देवर / जेठ / साला / बहनोई — all 'brother-in-law'
• cousin brother / cousin sister — say cousin; English does not mark gender here
• real brother — say brother; 'real' implies the others are fake

Hindi distinguishes paternal from maternal, elder from younger, and blood from marriage. English collapses all of it into uncle, aunt, cousin and in-law. There is no way to preserve the precision, so when it matters, describe the relationship: "my father's younger brother", "my mother's sister".

• cot — a bed for adults in India; a baby's bed elsewhere
• godown — say warehouse
• almirah — say wardrobe or cupboard
• geyser — a water heater in India; a hot spring elsewhere
• tube light — say fluorescent light; also Indian slang for a slow-witted person
• flat — correct in Britain and India; Americans say apartment

• curd — yoghurt
• ladyfinger — okra
• brinjal — aubergine or eggplant
• capsicum — bell pepper
• coriander — cilantro in America for the leaves
• gram flour — chickpea flour or besan
• sweet / sweets — say dessert or pastries depending on the item

Tip: Geyser is worth flagging for anyone renting abroad. Asking a landlord about the geyser will produce genuine confusion; the word you want is water heater or boiler.

6Work, school and paperwork

Professional vocabulary is where the Indian-English variety diverges most sharply from what an international recruiter expects — and where the cost of the mismatch is highest.

• biodata — say CV (UK) or résumé (US)
• passing out — graduating
• convocation — graduation ceremony; convocation exists elsewhere but is rarer
• standard / std — say grade or year: 'I was in Class 10', not '10th standard'
• tuition — private lessons in India; elsewhere it means university fees
• coaching — exam preparation classes; abroad it suggests sports or executive coaching
• join duty — say start work
• intimate — 'please intimate us' means inform; intimate elsewhere means close or personal
• prepone — bring forward
• revert — reply
• kindly — extremely common in Indian business English; abroad it sounds stiff, use please
• the same — 'please find the same attached' → 'please find it attached'

"Please intimate us of your arrival" is a real sentence in Indian business English, and to a foreign reader "intimate" means personal or close. The sentence reads oddly at best. Say "please let us know".

For an international CV, the highest-value changes are: biodata → CV, passing out → graduating, 10th standard → Class 10 or Grade 10, and removing "kindly" from covering letters. Those four cover most of what makes an Indian CV read as unfamiliar abroad.

Tip: None of these are wrong. They are simply local, and a recruiter in Toronto or London has not met them.

7Numbers: lakh, crore and the comma problem

This is the single most practical section in the guide, because numbers appear in every salary discussion, every price and every business document.

• 1 lakh = 100,000 = one hundred thousand
• 10 lakh = 1,000,000 = one million
• 1 crore = 10,000,000 = ten million
• 10 crore = 100,000,000 = one hundred million
• 100 crore = 1,000,000,000 = one billion

The comma placement differs too. Indian English writes 12,34,567 where international English writes 1,234,567 — the Indian system groups by two after the first three digits. A foreign reader seeing 12,34,567 will usually misread it or assume a typo.

In salary conversations this matters a great deal. "My CTC is 12 LPA" is opaque abroad on three counts — LPA, lakh, and the concept of CTC itself, which bundles benefits into the headline figure in a way most countries do not. Say "my annual salary is about 1.2 million rupees, roughly fourteen thousand dollars".

Tip: For any international document, write the full figure in digits and add the currency: 500,000 INR. It removes every ambiguity in one stroke.

8Time: prepone, the day after, and "do one thing"

A cluster of time and discourse expressions that are efficient in India and puzzling elsewhere.

• prepone — move earlier; the most useful Indian coinage in the language
• years back — say years ago
• since two hours — say for two hours; this one is an actual error, not a variety difference
• I am having a car — say I have a car; stative verbs resist the continuous
• do one thing — a discourse marker meaning 'here is a suggestion'; abroad it sounds like an instruction
• only — used for emphasis: 'I am from Delhi only' means 'I am indeed from Delhi'
• itself — similar emphatic use: 'today itself' means 'today, not later'
• no? / na? — a tag question; abroad use isn't it, right, or don't you think

"Do one thing" deserves a note because it is so common and so invisible to its own speakers. In India it softly introduces a suggestion — "Do one thing, call him after lunch." A foreign listener hears a command to perform a single unspecified task, which is a strange way to begin. Say "here's an idea" or "why don't you".

The emphatic "only" and "itself" come directly from Hindi ही, and they carry a meaning English has no single word for. Outside India the effect is lost and the sentence just sounds slightly off. Use tone of voice instead, or words like actually, indeed or right now.

Note that "since two hours" belongs in a different category from the rest of this list. It is not Indian English — it is the same since/for error that speakers of many languages make, and it is marked wrong in exams. Say "for two hours".

Tip: If you are preparing for IELTS or CELPIP, the since/for item is the only one in this section that will actually cost you marks. The others are variety features, not errors.

9The other direction: Hindi words that ARE English

Two centuries of contact ran both ways, and English absorbed a great deal of Hindi and Sanskrit vocabulary that is now entirely ordinary.

• shampoo — from चांपो, to press or massage
• pyjamas — from पायजामा
• bungalow — from बंगला, a Bengali-style house
• jungle — from जंगल
• loot — from लूट
• thug — from ठग
• bangle — from बंगड़ी
• cot — from खाट
• dinghy — from डोंगी
• veranda — via Hindi from Portuguese

• guru, pundit (from पंडित), avatar, karma, nirvana, yoga, mantra
• chutney, curry, punch (the drink, from पाँच, five ingredients)
• cushy — from खुश, happy
• juggernaut — from जगन्नाथ
• cheetah — from चीता
• shawl, khaki, dungarees, sari, jodhpurs
• pariah, cummerbund (from कमरबंद), bandana

Notice how invisible most of these are. Nobody using "shampoo", "jungle" or "pyjamas" thinks of them as foreign words, which is the surest sign a borrowing has fully settled. Punch is a particularly good one — the drink is named from पाँच because the original recipe had five ingredients.

This is worth knowing for the same reason the Arabic and Persian versions of this section are: learners who feel English is entirely alien give up sooner than learners who can see the two-way traffic. Indian English did not just receive; it contributed.

Tip: Avatar is the most modern example. It moved from Sanskrit through Hindi into English, and then into computing, where a billion people now use it without any idea of its origin.

10Grammar habits that mark Indian English

These are structural rather than lexical, and they divide cleanly into two groups — established variety features, and genuine errors that exams penalise.

• Articles: Hindi has no definite article, so 'the' is under- and over-used
• Word order in questions: 'You are going where?' from Hindi structure
• Reduplication for emphasis: 'small small things', from Hindi छोटी छोटी
• 'Myself Rahul' as an introduction — from Hindi, say 'I'm Rahul'
• Present perfect where the past simple belongs: 'I have gone yesterday'

Tip: For exams, fix since/for and articles first. Everything else in this section is either correct Indian English or a much smaller deduction.

11Thirty sentences, translated for a foreign listener

These are not corrections — most of the left-hand column is perfectly good Indian English. They are translations for an audience that has never encountered it.

• Can we prepone the meeting? → Can we move the meeting earlier?
• I will revert to you shortly → I will get back to you shortly
• Please do the needful → Please take care of it
• I passed out from IIT in 2019 → I graduated from IIT in 2019
• Kindly find the same attached → Please find it attached
• Please intimate us of your arrival → Please let us know when you arrive
• He is out of station this week → He is out of town this week
• My cousin brother is a doctor → My cousin is a doctor
• We ate at a good hotel → We ate at a good restaurant
• Can I borrow a rubber? → Can I borrow an eraser?
• Put it in a cover → Put it in a bag
• My CTC is 12 LPA → My annual salary is about 1.2 million rupees
• The flat costs 80 lakh → The flat costs eight million rupees
• Send me your biodata → Send me your CV
• I was in 10th standard → I was in Grade 10
• I take tuition on Saturdays → I take private lessons on Saturdays
• Do one thing, call him tomorrow → Here's an idea — call him tomorrow
• I am from Chennai only → I'm from Chennai
• Today itself I will finish → I'll finish it today
• You are coming, no? → You're coming, right?
• I am having two brothers → I have two brothers
• I am understanding the problem → I understand the problem
• I am here since two hours → I have been here for two hours
• Two years back I moved → Two years ago I moved
• Myself Priya, from Mumbai → I'm Priya, from Mumbai
• What is your good name? → What's your name?
• They are same to same → They are identical
• Add capsicum and curd → Add bell pepper and yoghurt
• The geyser is not working → The water heater isn't working
• Small small mistakes only → Just small mistakes

Tip: Only three of these are actual errors by any standard: "since two hours", "I am having two brothers" and "I am understanding". The rest are correct Indian English being translated for a different audience.

12Choosing which English you need

The real skill here is not replacing your English. It is knowing which version to reach for, and being able to switch.

Use Indian English freely in India, with Indian colleagues, and with anyone who shares the variety. Switch when the audience does not: international interviews, foreign clients, IELTS and CELPIP, and any writing that will be read abroad. That is a much smaller set of situations than "always", which is what most advice implies.

Switching is a listening skill before it is a speaking one. You need to have heard enough British, American, Canadian or Australian English to know what those speakers actually say — not what a grammar book claims. Content from the country you are dealing with is the fastest route to that.

• Pick the variety your audience uses — Canadian for CELPIP, British for IELTS, American for most tech
• Watch or listen to real content from that country, not learner material
• Note the words from this guide when you meet their equivalents
• Save the whole sentence, since the register matters as much as the word
• Practise the switch on a real message before you need it

Note that this is genuinely easier for Indian English speakers than for most learners, because the grammar and the vast majority of the vocabulary already match. What you are adjusting is a list of perhaps sixty items and a few discourse habits, not a language.

Tip: FlexiLingo shows interactive subtitles on YouTube and podcasts, so you can pick content from the country you are targeting, click any word to see its meaning and CEFR level, and save it with the sentence it appeared in.