🇳🇬

Understanding Lagos

Understanding Lagos

While you can visit Lagos without much prior knowledge, your visit will be much richer if you learn a bit about Nigeria’s history and rich diversity of peoples and cultures.

Read

Watch

Listen

Language

  • You don’t need to know any pidgin English or Yoruba to get by here, but if you watch a few pidgin english videos you’ll recognize some of the more common phrases during your stay: how far, abeg, sha, omo, abi, na wa o, etc.
  • Greetings here are used much more frequently than in the US. Life can be hard and basic courtesies go a long way so on every call or text interaction get used to starting with good morning, good afternoon, and good evening.
  • “Welcome” or “Well done” are also greetings. Take them less literally than you might in the US / Europe.
  • Similarly, “Do you get” or “Do you understand” are not literal questions here. They’re equivalent to “ya know?” in American English.

← Previous

Health and Safety