Ihwiho!

Liberian slang for "American accent" is "series." I think.

No one knows how to spell the word because no one's ever written it down. And no one ever knows what I'm saying because I'm never saying it right.

American English Rule	U.S.	Liberia
Pronounce “h” after “t”	Thought	Taut
Roll medial “t” into a “d”	Wadder	Watah
Pronounce terminal "y"	Happy	Happeh
An “r” sounds like “r”	Our	Owa
Conjugate the past tense	Seemed	Seem

I have three versions of everything I say since my first two attempts are always met with confusion. And Liberians do not use contractions, so....

Words I Can No Longer Use

I'm

You'd

She's

It'll

We're

They've

Get a Liberian teen to text you -- it'll age you ten years. (Did you know "d" means "the"?) 

The title of today's post is the president's battle cry. It took me two damn weeks to decipher: It Will Hold.

Sometimes I wonder if Liberians have united just to mess with me. Then I remember they have more important things to address: an entire generation missed going to school and more than half the population is considered illiterate. But this is a country in which only two of the 20 dialects are written -- Liberians were bound to do fascinating things with spoken word.

I hope they don't mind me butchering it a bit.