Interview English is a narrow, learnable register, and most of it can be prepared in advance. The part that can't — the unexpected question — is what people fear, and it needs a different kind of preparation rather than more memorisation.
What you can prepare
More than people expect. Almost every interview contains some version of: tell me about yourself; why this role; why leaving your current one; a strength; a weakness; a time something went wrong; a time you disagreed with someone; where you want to be; do you have questions for us.
That's nine answers. Preparing them properly — out loud, not in your head — covers most of an interview and frees your attention for the parts you can't anticipate.
Tell me about yourself
The most commonly mishandled question, because it sounds open and isn't.
It's not your life story and not your CV read aloud. It's roughly ninety seconds: what you do now, one or two things you've done that are relevant to this role, and why you're sitting here. Prepared and timed, because this is also where nerves are highest.
Answering with a structure
For any tell me about a time when question, the reliable shape is: the situation, what you did, what happened.
The value of a structure in a second language isn't that it impresses anyone. It's that it stops you getting lost mid-answer, which is the actual risk — starting a story you can't find the end of.
Keep it to a specific instance. I once had a project where the client changed the spec three weeks in is answerable. I'm generally good at handling change is not an answer.
The question you didn't expect
This is where preparation of a different kind matters. Three phrases:
That's a good question — let me think for a moment. Then actually think. A three-second pause is fine and reads as considered.
Can I check what you mean by —? Clarifying is not weakness; it's what a senior person does.
I haven't dealt with that directly, but something close was — Honest, and redirects to ground you know.
If you don't understand
Ask. Sorry, could you repeat that? or Could you rephrase that?
Everyone in that room would rather repeat a question than receive an answer to a different one. Guessing is the real risk, and interviewers notice when an answer doesn't match what they asked.
On accent
Interviewers in English-speaking markets hear accented English constantly and it is not what decides the outcome. What matters is being audible and unhurried.
Nerves make everyone speak faster, which makes any accent harder to follow. Slowing down is worth more here than any amount of pronunciation work in the week before.
Your questions for them
Have three, and not about salary. Something about the team, something about what success looks like in the role, something about what you'd be doing in the first few months.
Having none is read as not being very interested.
The one thing that transfers
An interview is an unscripted conversation under pressure with a stranger. Practising answers alone prepares half of it. The other half only comes from doing it with a person who asks you something you didn't prepare for.