{"id":16686,"date":"2025-10-10T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T17:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ottawa-english.com\/?p=16686"},"modified":"2026-03-10T18:27:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T18:27:20","slug":"indian-english-vs-canadian-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ottawa-english.com\/?p=16686","title":{"rendered":"Key Differences between Indian English and Canadian English"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ottawa-english.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Indian-English-vs-Canadian-English.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ottawa-english.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Indian-English-vs-Canadian-English.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16689\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019d think English is English is English, but that\u2019s not the case. British English, Canadian English, Australian English, and American English all have their slight differences, but when it comes to Indian English, the differences are far more pronounced because its evolution has been shaped by very different forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India saw the arrival of its first Brits back in the 1600s when they established trading posts that would later become part of the East India Company. By 1765, that company had become highly influential and dominated most of the country. This British rule continued until India gained independence in 1947. During that time The Brits set up Chrisitan schools to provide Indians with an English Education, and English became India\u2019s official and academic language used by government, the elite, and the national press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When India gained independence, there was a move toward replacing English with Hindi, but they soon realized that, with so many languages in the country, choosing Hindi as the national language would give those who had learned it as their mother tongue an unfair advantage in positions of power and influence. So, English remained. Today, English is widely used in the media, higher education and government and remains a common neutral communication medium for Indians who don\u2019t speak the same language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-indian-english-includes\">Indian English includes:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A preference for the continuous tenses. In Canadian English, the simple tenses make up over 90% of tense usage, but in Indian English, the opposite seems to apply. Whereas Canadians would say, \u201cI live in Canada\u201d, speakers of Indian English would normally say, \u201cI am living in Canada\u201d. Similarly, they would say, \u201cAll winter, I am feeling cold\u201d rather than, \u201cAll winter, I feel cold\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Using a combination of the present continuous tense with \u2018will\u2019 to show routine. In other words, an Indian English speaker would say, \u201cWe are parking on the street and will walk to the store.\u201d Rather than including the routine nature of the action in the tense by saying \u2018we park on the street and walk to the store\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An absence of articles. Often, the articles that accompany nouns in Canadian English are missing in Indian English. For example, \u201cthe car outside my house\u201d becomes \u201ccar outside my house\u201d, and \u201can apple\u201d simply becomes \u201capple\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Replacing the simple past tense\u2019s \u2018d\u2019 sound with time markers like yesterday, last week, or last year. That is to say, an Indian English speaker would say \u201cyesterday, it rain.\u201d rather than, \u201cIt rained.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The use of plural forms of uncountable nouns. In other words, rather than saying, \u201dthe luggage is in the car.\u201d It\u2019s not uncommon to hear, \u201cthe luggages are in the car.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Using the question form in positive statements. For example, in Indian English, \u201cI know where is the car\u201d is more common than, \u201cI know where the car is.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Hopefully, knowing some of these key differences between Indian English and Canadian English will help you, as an Indian English speaker, understand and tackle critical areas as you prepare for your language tests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019d think English is English is English, but that\u2019s not the case. British English, Canadian English, Australian English, and American [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Indian English - Ottawa English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What are some of the key differences between Indian English and Canadian English? 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