Indian English is English. It is not their English.
A different English, not a worse one
Start here, because most pages on this subject start wrong. Indian English is a full variety with its own grammar, its own vocabulary and a very large number of speakers. “Prepone” is a better word than “bring forward” and English is poorer for not having it. None of what follows is about correcting your English.
It is about a narrow practical problem: in an interview, the person scoring you speaks a different variety, usually American or British, and they are listening for meaning at speed. Where the two varieties diverge, a perfectly correct sentence in yours can be misread in theirs — and in a 45-minute round nobody stops to check. That is the whole subject. Everything below is a place where the two varieties disagree about what a sentence means.
The words that go missing across the gap
Where Hindi lends you the grammar
“I am having five years of experience”
Hindi uses the continuous far more widely, so English stative verbs get it too: I am knowing, I am having, I am understanding. Perfectly normal in Indian English; outside it, the marker that a listener latches onto first.
“I have completed my B.Tech in 2019”
A finished action with a date takes the simple past in British and American English: “I completed”. The perfect with a year is one of the few places where the two varieties genuinely collide on meaning.
“Since three years”
Since takes a point in time, for takes a duration: since 2021, for three years. And the verb wants the perfect continuous: “I have been working here for three years.”
Articles, both directions
Hindi has no definite article, so English ones get dropped — “I joined as developer”, “I was in team of eight” — or added where none belongs. It never blocks meaning. It is simply audible.
“…, isn’t it?”
Hindi has one invariant tag, na, and English has dozens that agree with the verb. A universal “isn’t it?” after every claim reads as asking for approval rather than stating a position.
“What you are doing there?”
Hindi questions keep statement order. English inverts. Under pressure the inversion is the first thing to go, and questions are exactly what you want to ask at the end of a round.
The other side of the table understates
This is the half nobody prepares for. British interviewers in particular express negative judgements through positive words, and American ones through enthusiasm that does not commit. Neither is dishonesty; both are conventions, and both are opaque if you are decoding the words.
“That’s quite good” — British
“Quite” is a downgrade in British English, not an intensifier. It means acceptable, not impressive. “Not bad” is warmer than “quite good”, which is one of the least intuitive facts in the language.
“I have one small concern” — rarely small
Usually the main objection, delivered gently so you can respond without losing face. Treat it as the most important thing said in the round and answer it fully.
“That’s an interesting approach” — pause before agreeing
Often means: I would not have done that, tell me why you did. It is an invitation to defend the choice, and thanking them for the compliment leaves the invitation unanswered.
“Can you double-click on that?” — go deeper
Corporate American for “more detail on that specific point”. Next to it: “let’s park that” (set aside for now) and “no pressure” (there is some pressure).
One more thing worth naming plainly. Deference is a virtue in a great many Indian workplaces, and “Sir” or “Ma’am” to an interviewer is ordinary courtesy. In most American and British rounds it creates distance rather than respect, and the interviewer will usually have given you their first name in the first sentence precisely so you use it. Likewise, “tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager” is not a trap: it is a question that expects a real disagreement, described calmly, with what you did next.
What Cue puts on screen
Cue is a Chrome extension. You click its icon in the tab where the interview is running, and Chrome hands that one tab’s audio to it — nothing joins the call, no participant is added, and your microphone is never requested. It works in Google Meet, Zoom on the web and Teams on the web, and not in the desktop clients.
What appears is the interviewer’s line as it was recognised, and under it the same line in whichever of the 68 languages you picked — Hindi if you want it, English if you would rather simply see the words written down. That second option is the one Indian English speakers tend to use, because the problem is usually not the language but a fast Scottish or Southern American accent and a line you only half caught. When a question is put to you, a short card appears: a structure to speak from, with the line it grew from attached so you can check it answered what was actually said.
Type a note about the call beforehand — the role, the team, the one project you want to reach — and the cards stop being generic. There is a field for your own question, too, which is where “what does quite good mean here” can go while the round is still running.
What it cannot do
It does not listen to you, so it cannot correct your English as you speak and does not try. It produces no recording, no summary and no notes; it cannot read your CV or any document, because there is no document feature at all; and the only context it has is the note you typed and the last few minutes of the call. Text is kept for 30 days and then deleted; audio is never stored.
It also cannot make an answer true. A language model writing about your architecture can be fluent and badly wrong, and the interviewer’s second “why?” finds that out reliably. The card is there so you are answering the right question in your own words, not so you have words to read out.
FAQ
This language, specifically.
Should I set the reading language to Hindi or leave it in English?+
Most Indian English speakers leave both buttons on English, because what they want is the interviewer’s words written down rather than translated — an unfamiliar accent on a bad line is the actual problem. Setting both to the same language turns the translation off. Hindi is there if you would rather read it, and you can switch mid-call.
Will it fix things like “passed out” or “revert back”?+
Not while you are speaking — it never hears your microphone. What it does is show you a card written in standard British or American English, which is where the alternative phrasing becomes visible. The habit itself is changed by noticing it, and this page is a faster way to notice it than a rejection email.
My interviewer has a strong British accent and I lose half of it. Does that help?+
That is the most common reason people run it. The recognised line stays on screen after the sentence has gone, so instead of guessing, you read what was said — and if a word was recognised wrongly, the strip of recognised speech under the window shows you that too.
Does it explain phrases like “let’s park that” or “double-click on that”?+
Not automatically, but there is a field where you can type your own question and get an answer in the window without interrupting anybody. That box is the single most useful part of Cue for idiom, and it works on anything said in the last few minutes.
Is it going to make my English sound less Indian?+
That is not the goal and not something we would sell. Indian English is a legitimate variety and your accent is not a problem to be solved. Cue helps in two narrow places: understanding a question you did not catch, and structuring an answer under time pressure.
Let the round be about your work.
Trippi Cue is in the Chrome Web Store. The interviewer arrives in your language, and your answer is written in the one you pick.