@ thread! completely nonsense!

that remind us about the people who taught their kids to speak in english at the expense of their own native lingo as a way of livin

yeye! u think say u know?

god bless nigeria

Grammar no be money na foreign language.

no mind dem

:d :d :d

Over six million white british adults can't write or speak what you call queens english,yet they are not crying,meanwhile people that english is their second language seems to bother more.English language is an international communication tool,because they made it so,it is about superiority, it is about attraction,it is about indoctrination,it is about loosing the fundamentals,when you loose your language,all you need is to understand the the basics of the language and relate in the game of survival,Language evolve and changes with time,it could be chinese or swahili tomorrow,like it has been egyptian,latin,greek,roman,name it.What is your own language that people will like to emulate?

tnaidaR, u not getting my point at all, the other ghanians are obviously speaking english, you cant understand till u experience what i am talking about, u sure not for pidgin, i beg make u waka make i yarn my pidgin.

I would like us to note that English is not our Original language.
But we try by all means to learn it.
It is neccessary to learn English but i don't think anyone should criticize anybody for their inability to speak english correctly.

tell them make dem hia, na all this new grammar learner dey cos ol this problem o.

I beg make una no mind dem jare, na cos dem no fit yarn the thing.

y'all should make a distinction here.

pidgin speaking should be separated from the ability to communicate in proper English

I think the OP was talking more about the inability of many Nigerians to speak the language in its 'correct' form. I'm not talking about when hanging out with the boys or buying and selling in the market, I'm talking about formal situations demanding a firm grasp of the language

e.g Job interviews, formal meetings and the like. very poor English is spoken many a time in those situations resulting in people losing job opportunities, contracts and such. We should learn to recognise when you need to speak properly and when to engage in informal/colloquial banter in pidgin.

the English Language is in a sorry state in Naija, the SSCE/WAEC scores show as much, performance is dropping like a stone in water. clearly those cases involve using the lingo in its correct form, and Nigerians are failing at that. Now whether the use of pidgin is at fault here or not is debatable.

debosky, i beg to disagree, nigerian on the other hands could speak english so well, i mean too well, compared to americas, nigerians are realy good in english.

compared to which Americans?

The percentage/number of supposedly university educated Nigerians who cannot speak correct English is appalling. Now if you're talking about someone who barely managed to get his high school diploma or something, then I wouldn't mind or be surprised, but if you've spent more than 12 years being taught in English and at the end of it you can't even express yourself at an interview or write a CV without grammatical errors, then it is unacceptable.

lets not kid ourselves here. there is a serious issue with our use of English and it needs to be remedied.

60% of American are academically illitrates, but has smart brains from daily experiences.

romeo:

what about terrible state of igbo language in Britain? just be proud of your own young man

AINT DAT DA DAMN TRUTH?!!!

@cade
Are you da UK ambassador to Nigeria?

What's da big deal if most Nigerians don't speak "good English"? Is English da native language of Nigeria or Nigerians?

thank you, ask them for us, if inglis na mama tongue o.

redsun:

Over six million white british adults can't write or speak what you call queens english,yet they are not crying,meanwhile people that english is their second language seems to bother more.English language is an international communication tool,because they made it so,it is about superiority, it is about attraction,it is about indoctrination,it is about loosing the fundamentals,when you loose your language,all you need is to understand the the basics of the language and relate in the game of survival,Language evolve and changes with time,it could be chinese or swahili tomorrow,like it has been egyptian,latin,greek,roman,name it.What is your own language that people will like to emulate?

Look at this, you can't even make the distinction between "loose" and "lose". You see? It's just sad.

And nobody said a WORD about the "Queen's English." There's a standard in English that the UK, America, Austrailia and other developed Anglophone countries use.

As I said, if English is to continue as the official language of Nigeria, it is a shame that her citizens cannot manage to speak and write the language clearly and intelligently.

Throughout this thread people make excuses for pidgin and grasp at straws that "it's our language." No, it's not. It's a watered-down version of a European language, probably started by some illiterates who couldn't grasp English properly. The true Nigerian languages are Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa etc. Not that pidgin crap. It's a farce.

romeo:

what about terrible state of igbo language in Britain? just be proud of your own young man

Is Igbo the official language of the UK? What a stupid comparison to make.

The mind is such a terrible thing to waste.

lovemajek:

60% of American are academically illitrates, but has smart brains from daily experiences.

Young lady, where did you pull this statistic from? Your fetid anus?

It's funny that your sentence alone is a horrific mess grammatically and you spelled illiterates wrong. Re-enroll in some English classes, I beg!

i think its worse when people cant write English properly, and thats a whole new issue. oyinbo people are even worse than we are when it comes to that, and this is a language they grew up with, without having to worry about yoruba, hausa or ibgo languages!   that aside, since coming unto this forum, i've come across threads that when trying to read, i actually develop a headache from tyring to decipher what the poster is talking about. just too pathetic. the grammer skills are just shocking! and I keep saying that the Admin should try to correct spelling mistakes with some of the topics before they're posted. it makes nigerians as a whole look bad. shesh!

How amazing that we are just blinded by what the oyinbo pple wants you to blv, nigerians are one of the few nationalities that are well educated and have great command of english language.
Most african american cant construct one line of english without making firing some bullets, how do they pronouce fifty for example, it kinda makes me sick when i see nigerians telling me that american can speak good english, first of all, english aint our first language, and yet we can read it, write it and when we speak it, people have no choice than to ask us, if we speak english in nigeria, no matter how you look at it, nigerians are good in english, i do understand there are some that cant speak good english, however, even in america where english is the main language, there are millions that cant even write their own name as long as the name is english,

yeah, and i still dont find it funny when oyinbo tell me I speak very good Engligh! like wtf is the big deal about that darn language? is it supposed to be a special thing?

So sad that nigerians will do anything to wanna be accepted by a white man, that is why at clubs in nigeria, they will let some dumb ass chinese man enter first be4 they allow nigerians in and yet dem murder suckers cant even construct one good sentence.

Rhino if our English was that good, how come we're not exempt from taking TOEFL and co while countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa are? Our English may be good in some cases, but there is a great deterioration of the speaking and writing capacity in formal situations

@ soul i get that too oh, dem come dey ask me, how come you learned how to speak English so quickly? I'm thinking I've probably been speaking it longer than you sef

Fufu King:

Young lady, where did you pull this statistic from? Your fetid anus?

that was really uncalled for,

debosky, na true o, my broda. for the number of times i've been told ehn, i for don rich by now and thats even after u tell them that English is our friggin official language. ignorant fools. but anyway, i still shake my head when some of them put words together wrongly, as in just bad grammer. to the extent that i have to correct them at times because i just cant stand it. its their first language! how hard can it be? talkless of me a Naija girl, i speak English, Yoruba and Hausa, and i'm even taking on other foreign languages. oyinbo people have it easy o, yet they take it for granted. don't be fooled that their English is way better than urs, cos it isn't always.

debosky, sometimes, it is lack of what you dont know that worries nigerians, it is people like you that made nigerians to be added to pple that has to do such exams, i remember couple of nigerian dudes that gained admission to universities in canada, at first they were requested to pass all these nonesense of ESL ( english as a second language), when they arrived in canada, myself and some other nigerians went with them to the admin's office and argued that english is the official language in nigeria, and even the admin officer bows when guys that just landed in canada within a week was throwing english and catching them anyhow, it is an insult for nigerians and somalia to be siting for ESL, so if you know what you doing and how to argue it, you will be excluded, also, sometimes, it is to generate money and not realy to test your grammer.

debousky, if you see some whites writing oyinbo for you, you will run, they can speak it, and not big deal, even a 2 year old kid can speak it very well, but tell them to wrote it down, na kata kata go burst, speaking it aint same as writing it.

$$Rhino:

debousky, if you see some whites writing oyinbo for you, you will run, they can speak it, and not big deal, even a 2 year old kid can speak it very well, but tell them to wrote it down, na kata kata go burst, speaking it aint same as writing it.

that should have been write mate, and you are still missing my point. making examples of what 'some whites' or 'some Americans' will do simply is not the crux of this matter.

English is the official Language of communication/business in Nigeria, yet after numerous years of study a huge segment of the society fails to communicate/express themselves in an adequate and comprehensible fashion, especially after donkey years of education in this Language. That is shameful and unacceptable. If we want to make another language official, then lets do that.

debosky, i can see that you are one of the few that will tell people in ya hood to stand up cos oyinbo man dey talk, i rest myc ase with you.
nigerians are good, you dont have to blv it nor take it, but we are goooooooooood

ok, let me get what you're saying - are you saying the English Language is not in a terrible state in Nigeria based on the foregoing?

it is o, very bad sef, but we still have to give ourselves credit for at least trying. i think we are one of the best English speaking African countries, if i may say so.

debosky, u seems to just wanna argue blindly, this is a chatzone/forum, where pple just use any slang and say anything, but u wanna come here and be an engloish master to correct words and sentences, so i rest my case, u sounds like one of dem " too knows' nigerians that would rather hail foreigners, state of english in nigeria is realy good, if you compare the access to education in nigeria and that of the owners of the language, english is not your language and i am sure that when you are at home talking to mom and dad, you dont coomunicate in english, so pally, yarn your laguage and pidgin and have fun, stop biting ur tongue all in da name of trying to please pple that dont give a hoot about you, no matter how much english you can speak wont make an oyinbo man give you a chance in life, you will have to go get it, so we are doign great in nigeria and i am sure that nigerians dont need your "thumb up" to feel good about their grammer