If you grew up speaking Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, or Sindhi at home and English at school, you already know the strange feeling of a sentence that "sounds right" in your head but comes back marked in red ink. That is not a lack of intelligence — it is your first language quietly shaping the second one. Urdu does not use articles the way English does, its verb tenses map differently onto time, and its prepositions rarely translate word for word. Once you see the pattern behind the mistake, it stops being a mystery and becomes a rule you can apply every time you write or speak. Below are ten mistakes that show up again and again in Pakistani classrooms, offices, and exam papers, grouped by category so you can fix the habit, not just the sentence.
Article Trouble: A, An, and The
Urdu has no direct equivalent of "a," "an," or "the," so students either drop articles entirely or scatter them randomly.
- Mistake: "I want to become doctor." Fix: "I want to become a doctor." Use "a/an" before any singular, countable profession, object, or idea the listener hasn't specifically identified yet.
- Mistake: "Pakistan is beautiful country." Fix: "Pakistan is a beautiful country." Even proper-sounding sentences need an article before a singular noun.
- Mistake: "He is best player in team." Fix: "He is the best player in the team." Superlatives ("best," "tallest," "only") and specific, already-known nouns almost always take "the."
- Quick test: if the noun is singular and countable, ask yourself "which one?" — if there's only one obvious answer, use "the"; if any one will do, use "a/an."
Tense Confusion: Present Perfect, Past Simple, and "Since/For"
Urdu often uses one construction where English separates finished actions from ongoing ones, which is why these two tenses get mixed up constantly.
- Mistake: "I am living in Lahore since 2015." Fix: "I have lived in Lahore since 2015." An action that started in the past and continues now needs present perfect, not present continuous.
- Mistake: "I have seen that movie yesterday." Fix: "I saw that movie yesterday." A finished action with a specific past time word ("yesterday," "last week," "in 2020") always takes simple past.
- Mistake: "I am knowing the answer." Fix: "I know the answer." Stative verbs — know, want, believe, love, own — describe states, not actions, so they usually skip the continuous "-ing" form entirely.
- Since vs. for: use "since" with a starting point in time ("since 2015," "since Monday") and "for" with a duration ("for three years," "for two hours").
Preposition Pitfalls Borrowed from Urdu
Prepositions are the trickiest part of English because they rarely follow logic — they follow custom, and Urdu custom leaks into English sentences.
- Mistake: "Discuss about this topic." Fix: "Discuss this topic." In English, "discuss" already means "talk about," so adding "about" is redundant.
- Mistake: "He married with her." Fix: "He married her" or "He got married to her." Never insert "with" after "married."
- Mistake: "I reached at the station." Fix: "I reached the station" or "I arrived at the station." "Reach" takes no preposition; "arrive" needs "at" or "in."
- Mistake: "Kindly revert back to me." Fix: "Kindly revert to me" or simply "Kindly reply." "Revert" already means "go back," so "back" is unnecessary — this one is extremely common in Pakistani office emails.
Subject-Verb Agreement and Word Order
Because Urdu sentence structure is subject-object-verb, direct translation often scrambles English word order and verb agreement.
- Mistake: "My both hands are paining." Fix: "Both my hands hurt" or "Both my hands are hurting." Word order matters: "both" comes before the possessive, and "pain" is rarely used as a verb in standard English.
- Mistake: "Everyone are happy today." Fix: "Everyone is happy today." Words like everyone, everybody, someone, and nobody are always treated as singular.
The fastest way to unlearn any of these habits is not memorizing rules in isolation but noticing the mistake in your own speech, correcting it out loud, and reusing the correct form three times in the next conversation — repetition rewires the instinct faster than any textbook chapter.
None of these mistakes reflect poor ability — they reflect a brain doing the very impressive work of running two grammar systems at once. For structured, free practice with real audio and exercises, the British Council's Learn English platform is a solid, well-organized starting point for Pakistani students at any level.
Roman Urdu
Pakistani students jo ghar mein Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto ya Sindhi bolte hain, unke liye English ke article, tense aur preposition thora mushkil hote hain — kyunki Urdu mein inka seedha tarjuma nahi hota. Lekin ek baar pattern samajh aa jaye to yeh galtiyan aasani se theek ho jati hain.
Articles (a, an, the): Urdu mein "a/an/the" jaisa kuch nahi hota, is liye students inhein chorr dete hain. Jaise "I want to become doctor" ke bajaye "I want to become a doctor" kehna sahi hai. Agar noun singular aur countable ho to hamesha "a/an" ya "the" lagayen — "the" tab jab specific cheez ka pata ho, jaise "the best player in the team."
Tenses: "I am living in Lahore since 2015" ghalat hai, sahi hai "I have lived in Lahore since 2015" — kyunki kaam past mein shuru hua aur ab bhi jari hai, is liye present perfect use karein. Agar time specific ho jaise "yesterday" ya "last week," to simple past use karein: "I saw that movie yesterday," na ke "I have seen." "Since" starting point ke sath aata hai (since 2015), aur "for" duration ke sath (for three years).
Prepositions: "Discuss about this topic" ghalat hai, sirf "Discuss this topic" kahein. "He married with her" bhi ghalat hai — "with" ki zaroorat nahi, "He married her" kafi hai. Office emails mein "revert back" bhi aam ghalti hai — sirf "revert" ya "reply" kahein, kyunki "revert" ka matlab pehle hi "wapas jana" hota hai.
Subject-verb agreement: "Everyone are happy" ghalat hai, sahi hai "Everyone is happy" — everyone, everybody, someone hamesha singular treat hote hain. "My both hands are paining" ke bajaye "Both my hands hurt" kehna zyada natural English hai.
Yaad rakhein, yeh galtiyan zehanat ki kami nahi — do zabanon ko sath sath chalane ka natural result hain. Roz apni speech mein galti pakrein, foran theek karke dobara istemal karein — yehi tareeqa sabse tez seekhata hai. Free practice ke liye British Council's Learn English website behtareen resource hai.
