CCL guides

NAATI CCL Common Mistakes and Why People Fail

Updated 7 September 2026 · facts checked against NAATI and Home Affairs pages on that date

Nobody fails the CCL for one dramatic error. Marking begins at 90 and takes marks off, and each error costs a different number of marks depending on how much it affects the overall communication. That is why the honest way to read this list is as a set of small leaks. Fix the leaks and the score looks after itself. You can test yourself against the list on a free marked dialogue at /practice.

Omissions: the information you never said

The single most expensive error type is leaving something out. Accuracy is assessed on how correct the information is and on not removing or adding any information — so a segment where you conveyed the gist but dropped the appointment time, the agency name or one of three conditions has lost content that was there to transfer.

Omissions usually have a cause, and it is rarely vocabulary. Segments are 35 words or less, but 35 words can carry a surprising number of discrete facts: a date, a place, an amount, a reason, and an instruction. When you listen for the story rather than the items, the last item in a list is the one that disappears.

Two habits help. First, count the items as you listen, so you know how many separate things have to survive into your version. Second, write down only what memory reliably drops: numbers, dates, names and lists. You may take notes with a pen and loose sheets of paper, so use that allowance for the parts that are hardest to hold.

Distortions: the information you changed

A distortion is worse than a hesitation because the other speaker in a real conversation would act on it. Turning "you may be eligible" into "you are eligible", turning a fortnightly amount into a weekly one, or reversing who is responsible for something all change the meaning of the exchange.

Distortions cluster around a few predictable places: modality (may, must, should, might), negation, direction (who pays whom, who applies to whom), quantities and time expressions, and conditions attached to entitlements. Community-level dialogues in areas like Medicare, Centrelink and tenancy are full of conditional statements, which is exactly where a small shift in wording becomes a large shift in meaning.

If you are unsure of a term, a plain description that keeps the condition intact will cost you less than a confident-sounding term that changes it.

Unjustified insertions: helping when you should not

The third accuracy error is adding information that was not said. It is the mistake of experienced bilingual people who are used to helping family members: explaining what a government agency does, adding a reassurance the speaker did not offer, or tidying up a rude sentence into a polite one.

Register is assessed separately — matching the formality of the speaker when you transfer the meaning to the other person. If a speaker is blunt, an interpreted version that is warm and diplomatic has changed the register as well as the content. If a speaker uses a term that the other party may not know, your job is to transfer it, not to gloss it.

The rule of thumb is simple: everything the speaker said, nothing the speaker did not say.

Grammar and quality of language

Quality of language covers using good sentence structure, natural use of the language and pronunciation, the right level of formality, and not making many grammatical errors. It applies in both directions — English and the other language are both assessed.

This trips up two different kinds of candidate. People whose first language is English lose marks on grammar and naturalness in the LOTE. People whose first language is the LOTE lose marks on English sentence structure, tense and articles, often because they are concentrating so hard on the content that the English comes out as a word-by-word rebuild of the source.

The remedy is the one NAATI itself suggests: immerse yourself in the language in which you are least confident. If your first language is English, listen to and talk as much as you can in your other language. If your first language is another language, listen to and use as much English as possible.

Too many English words in the LOTE

NAATI recognises that there are languages in which English words are regularly and commonly used by LOTE speakers, and that this usage is widely understood within the LOTE-speaking community in Australia. Under Policy B, you will not be penalised where the English word is regularly and commonly used by LOTE speakers, and limited use of English words is appropriate where it is part of the language norms and conventions.

Excessive use is the problem — and several language-specific policies are stricter than the general rule. Some of the published examples:

• Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Odia, Dzongkha: using English numerals is penalised, and figures given in millions must be converted to lakhs or crores (and the reverse).
• Persian: only English words with no substitute in Persian, mainly technical words, are allowed.
• Polish: English terms should be restricted to words that have gained currency and become widely used and understood in Polish, such as weekend, manager, design, top.
• Ukrainian: excessive use of Anglicisms is penalised where a commonly used Ukrainian word exists.
• Greek: a hybrid of English and Greek is not considered appropriate Greek for this test.

Read your own language's entry before you sit. There is a dedicated guide on English words in the LOTE.

Literal transfer that no one would say

An interpretation can contain every fact and still lose marks for being unidiomatic. Quality of language includes natural use of the language, and a sentence assembled in English word order and then spoken in the LOTE is not natural use, even when it is comprehensible.

Some published language policies make specific demands here. Marathi and Odia require honorific plurals as a mark of respect when addressing someone in the second or third person, and penalise literal use of incorrect plural or singular forms. Marathi also modifies verbs by gender. Telugu expects context-appropriate forms because plural addressing is routinely used for singular nouns as a form of respect.

Related to this is direct speech. Indirect or third-person style is not acceptable in interpreting; marks may be deducted, and a test interpreted entirely in indirect speech may be invalidated. The details are in the rules, repeats, notes and pauses guide.

Excessive repeats, pauses and self-corrections

Three delivery errors sit close together and often arrive as a group:

They compound. A repeat you did not need eats time; the time pressure produces hesitation; the hesitation produces a rushed sentence you then correct. Practising with exactly one repeat per dialogue is the cheapest way to break the chain.

Running past 20 minutes

Your test performance must be less than 20 minutes. That covers the recordings of the dialogue segments and your performance only — time spent navigating between dialogues or segments, reading instructions or uploading responses is not counted. If your test runs longer, NAATI may stop assessing your performance once the recording reaches 20 minutes.

This is the mistake with the largest downside, because it can remove work you actually did. Two dialogues of roughly 300 words each, half in English and half in the LOTE, leave room for a normal speaking pace and a small amount of thinking time — but not for long silences plus extra repeats plus restarts.

How to find your own leaks

Reading a list of errors is not the same as knowing which ones you make. Record yourself, play it back, and mark your own segments against the three categories above: did I drop anything, did I change anything, did I add anything, and did it sound like the language.

Our practice dialogues follow the same specification as the test — two speakers, segments of 35 words or fewer, around 300 words each — and the AI marking shows segment by segment what was retained, omitted or distorted, which is exactly the accuracy split above. The score is our model's estimate rather than a NAATI result, so use it to find patterns, not to predict an outcome. Build vocabulary for the recurring topics at /terms/, check whether your language is tested at /languages, and see how the deductions translate into a final mark in the scoring and pass mark guide. If you have already sat and missed out, the review and resit guide sets out what happens next.

Start a free marked dialogue at /practice and count your own omissions before an examiner does.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most common mistakes in the NAATI CCL test?

NAATI deducts marks in three areas: accuracy, quality of language and quality of delivery. That covers removing or adding information, grammatical errors, unnatural or overly literal language, the wrong level of formality, more than one repeated segment per dialogue, and excessive pauses, hesitations or self-corrections.

Why do people fail the NAATI CCL test?

A fail is a total below 63, or less than 29 marks in one or both dialogues. Because marking starts at 90 and deducts for each error, a fail is usually the sum of many small losses across both dialogues rather than one catastrophic mistake.

Does adding extra information lose marks?

Yes. Accuracy is assessed on how correct the information is, and on not removing or adding any information. Explaining, softening or improving on what a speaker said is an insertion, even when you mean well.

Do grammar mistakes matter in the NAATI CCL test?

Yes. Quality of language covers sentence structure, natural use of the language, pronunciation, the right level of formality, and not making many grammatical errors. It is assessed in both English and the other language.

Is it a mistake to use English words when speaking the LOTE?

Not always. NAATI accepts English words that are regularly and commonly used by LOTE speakers in Australia, under Policy B of its language policy. The problem is excessive use, and some language-specific policies penalise English numerals and unnecessary borrowings.

How many repeats can I use before it costs marks?

One repeated segment per dialogue is allowed without penalty. If you repeat more than one segment per dialogue, marks will be deducted from your score.

What happens if I run out of time?

Your test performance must be less than 20 minutes, counting the dialogue segment recordings and your interpreting. NAATI may stop assessing your test performance when the recording reaches 20 minutes if your test runs longer than that.

Sources

• https://www.naati.com.au/migration-assessments/ccl/
• https://www.naati.com.au/resources/candidate-instructions-ccl/
• https://www.naati.com.au/resources/language-policy-ccl/

Facts checked against NAATI and Home Affairs pages on 7 September 2026.

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