English Mistakes Nigerians Make

Bogus does not mean big. It means fake. And there are about forty more like it.

A practical 25-page guide for Nigerians who want their English to hold up in the rooms where it counts: the interview panel, the examination hall, the client presentation, the email to a partner in London or Toronto.

This is not about abandoning how you speak. Nigerian English is a real variety and Pidgin is a language in its own right. What this guide gives you is a second gear you can switch into when you need it, and switch back out of when you do not.

Inside:

The words we use to mean almost the opposite of what they mean: bogus, lousy, severally, notorious, revert, opportuned

Look-alike pairs settled for good: principal and principle, discreet and discrete, adverse and averse

Pronunciation in plain English, not phonetic symbols: pressure, pleasure, assume, chef, champagne, corps, maintenance

Formal writing that sounds current instead of like a 1980s memo

A wrong versus correct master table, four exercises with a full answer key, and a glossary of 36 tricky pairs

Written by Seyi Bale, an English educator with about twenty-five years in classrooms, staffrooms and curriculum leadership.