Terrible State Of The English Language In Nigeria

 Grammar no be money na foreign language.

 :d :d :d

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

How amazing that we are just blinded by what the oyinbo people 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 can't construct one line of english without making firing some bullets, how do they pronouce fifty for example, it kind of 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 can't speak good english, however, even in america where english is the main language, there are millions that can't even write their own name as long as the name is english,

So sad that nigerians will do anything to want to 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 them murder suckers can't even construct one good sentence.

that was really uncalled for,

debosky, sometimes, it is lack of what you don't know that worries nigerians, it is people like you that made nigerians to be added to people 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.

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.

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?

debosky, u seems to just want to argue blindly, this is a chatzone/forum, where people just use any slang and say anything, but u want to come here and be an engloish master to correct words and sentences, so i rest my case, u sounds like one of them " 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 don't coomunicate in english, so pally, yarn your laguage and pidgin and have fun, stop biting your tongue all in da name of trying to please people that don't 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 don't need your "thumb up" to feel good about their grammer