Learning a handful of Nepali phrases before a trip is a great habit — but a few common mistakes can undercut the effort. Here are five worth fixing before you land in Kathmandu.
First, defaulting to casual pronoun forms with everyone. Nepali has a real politeness hierarchy, and using "tapai" rather than "timi" with strangers and elders matters more than most guidebooks explain.
Second, ignoring the head wobble — Nepali's nonverbal "yes," which looks nothing like a Western nod and is easy to misread as confusion.
Third, bargaining at fixed-price shops where it is not expected. Fourth, switching to English the instant a sentence gets hard, which prevents real progress. Fifth, skipping Devanagari entirely — romanization alone caps how far your Nepali can go.
For the full breakdown of each, see our Nepal Travel Phrases guide.