English to Nigerian Pidgin: 40 everyday sentences translated

Online Pidgin translators are a fun toy, but they tend to swap words one by one, and Pidgin does not work like that. It has its own grammar: small words before the verb show when something happens, and verbs themselves never change. So here are forty everyday sentences translated the way a person would say them, with notes that show you why.

Two cautions. There is more than one right way to say most things, and spellings vary, because Pidgin has no official written standard (BBC News Pidgin uses one system; WhatsApp uses many). And Pidgin changes by region: these are the plain, widely understood forms you will hear in Lagos.

The four words you need

• dey = is doing, or is somewhere
• don = has done, already
• go = will
• no = not (before the verb)

Greetings

Coming and going

Food

Knowing and talking

Money and shopping

Feelings and reactions

Patterns to take away

Look back over the forty and you will see the same few moves again and again:

1. The verb never changes. Come, came and coming are all come; the word in front tells you which.
2. “Is” becomes na or be, or disappears: “My name na AJ”, “Wetin be your name?”, “E too cost”.
3. “Not yet” is never. “I never chop” is not a confession; it means you are hungry.
4. Him, her and it are all am after a verb.
5. The past is often unmarked. “I no see am” can be “I didn’t see him”; context does the rest. Linguists note that past time in Pidgin is very often left to context.

To build your own sentences, read how to speak Nigerian Pidgin. For single words and slang, see our Nigerian slang dictionary.

Where the words come from

Most of the vocabulary in these forty sentences is English, which is why an English speaker can half-follow Pidgin from day one. The rest is a map of West African history: sabi is Portuguese, oya and shebi are Yoruba, una is Igbo, and wahala came through Yoruba and Hausa from Arabic. Wetin is English “what thing”, and comot is “come out”.

A word on machine translators

If you paste a long English paragraph into a Pidgin translator, check the result with a speaker before you send it to anyone. Word-for-word swaps tend to miss the markers above, and the result can read as a parody rather than Pidgin. For anything serious, a person beats a program.

Hear it in AJ Cities

Sentences 5 and 18 are in the opening chapter of AJ’s story, when Chuks sees his old friend for the first time in years: “AJ! Na you?” and, minutes later, “Sit down small, the rice is almost done.” AJ Cities is a free open-world game set on the edge of Ajegunle, Lagos, and its characters mix plain English with a light touch of Pidgin, just as many Lagosians do.

How do you say “How are you?” in Nigerian Pidgin?

“How you dey?” The usual reply is “I dey fine” or just “I dey”. Informally, “How far?” works as a greeting too.

How do you say “I don’t know” in Pidgin?

“I no sabi.” Sabi means to know; it comes from the Portuguese “saber”.

What does “I never chop” mean?

I haven’t eaten yet. In Pidgin “never” before a verb usually means “not yet”.

Is there an official Nigerian Pidgin spelling?

No. Pidgin has no official standard; BBC News Pidgin developed its own written form, and people online spell words many ways.