Talk:Basic English

Grammar

What we really need is to apply the rules of grammar of Basic English to the 2000 words required to make up a full defining vocabulary. See talk:Simple English

Boilerplate

Suggestion for new boilerplate, 24 October 03: On every article whose title is one of the 850 Basic English words we add a header:

This is a Basic English word.

-- I assume users will often find this kind of marker helpful -- RJ092191.user.veloxzone.com.br

Yes, good idea. We should do the same for the most common 1000 words and 2000 words.

So you want to do it for the BE list, the 1000 word list, and the 2000 word list? Where does it end? What if I want to do it for the Spache list as well. See my comments on Wikipedia talk:Standard messages. This is not a good idea. We are not the "Basic English" Wikipedia. Angela.

I was just writing a suggestion, but i've deleted, because i've realised something. We aren't meant to have pages for the BE words.

No, not the "words", but if the name of an article happens to be the same as a BE (or defining vocabulary or Spache word) we should say so, as it marks a very basic concept every English reader must know. Mostly these will be disambiguation pages or those explaining complex alternative uses, e.g. boot, net, web, run. When you see on the screen of the computer at the school which you get 15 minutes/week on, it matters if you understand "no boot device", or can figure out what it is to "run" a program vs. to run in a soccer game. Likewise to catch fish in net vs. to get email over it. We forget how confusing this metaphor is, and how mixed (you access a non-spider web usually via the net, but the HTML files may be on your boot not data drive etc.). Imagine how confusing that lingo, which EVERYONE uses, ESPECIALLY new EN users, if we don't write at least those disambiguation articles. There won't be more than about 100 of them though. What Tango says here is exactly right:

The idea is everyone who comes to the site knows BE and we only have to explain NON BE words. The idea of being a dictionary was never meant to include definitions for the 1000/2000 words. -- Tango

That's exactly right. Those are the ONLY words we CAN'T put those definitions in for! There is enough to do defining those > the 2000 and getting good articles in place to properly introduce subjects under the proper Full English names, so they can find the correct Full articles (in any language).

"We aren't meant to have pages for the BE words. The idea is everyone who comes to the site knows BE and we only have to explain NON BE words. The idea of being a dictionary was never meant to include definitions for the 1000/2000 words." -- I am new here, so I have to ask: Who says so? Can you point me to a discussion? (I am not asking this to argue, but because if there is a Standard Operating Procedure about this I haven't seen it. Thanks.) -- RJ092191.user.veloxzone.

This is at Simple English Wikipedia policy. It's one of those points where we must have a markedly different rule than the Full wikis.

Also -- "The idea is everyone who comes to the site knows BE and we only have to explain NON BE words." -- I say again: The users, contributors, and editors of this SEWiki are de facto anybody who can get to a WWW-capable terminal, can use it, and stumbles across this site. We *cannot* and presumably *should not try to* control "who comes to this site". -- RJ092191.user.veloxzone.

Control, no, make a few simple assumptions about, yes.

The assumptions are at Simple English Users. As it stands, it is a list of all non-English-speaking people on Earth, with no attempt to guess how likely they are to get to a WWW-capable terminal and this website. It would be more useful for someone to figure that out, and calculate the likelihood of different types of users getting here for help, than to continue arguing about being a full dictionary that we don't have skills or talent to write.

I can't remember where it was discussed, probably SimpleTalk, but i seem to remember the conclusion was (although most of it was made before i got here) that we needed to be a dictionary as well as an encyclopedia so we could define the non-simple words that we would need to use in articles from time to time. There was never any intention of making definitions for the simple words. We may not want to control who comes here, but we must have an intended audience. In my view, that is people who already have a knowledge of simple english. We are not here to teach people english. If we want to help people learn english, we need to completely change the way we work. -- Tango

I think the discussion is at Talk:Simple English Wikipedia policy now.

We are however "teaching English" if we start with Basic English or a defining vocabulary and then define idiom and technical term up from that. We just aren't teaching Basic English! There are far better programs and systems to do that.

operator?

Operators and pronouns conjugate as in normal English.

Since "operator" with a relevant linguistic meaning is not in this Wikipedia or in the normal English one or any of the dictionaries i consulted, it should be changed to something comprehensible and correct. --80.186.159.233 12:30, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out that "operator", "pronoun" and "conjugate" are not part of the 850 words in basic English. 2.203.158.116 (talk) 18:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Meles Melesalemu72 (talk) 20:20, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Rules of Word Use Recommendation

Under this heading, Rule 8 is:

Make combined words from two nouns (for example "milkman"

or "wordend") or a noun and a directive (sundown).

I'm new to Simple English Wikipedia, but as an ESL teacher, I really don't like making nonexistent words (like "wordend") to explain things. Would those with more experience here agree that we can take out "wordend" in its two occurrences? (There's one use above this rule.) --DBlomgren 15:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I concur with DBlomgren, this should be changed. We aren't supposed to be inventing new words here. Blockinblox 00:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree and disagree... 'wordend' in itself is not very logical, and therefore would be disruptive to a student of the language's learning experience of it anyway. Howwever 'word-end' with a dash, makes all the difference. Therefore, if all compound words were made by joining the two words with a dash, there would be no worry that it may not be correct... because even in normal english you can basically join any two words with a hyphen to create a certain meaning. However, joining two words without a dash is a more tricky event, and we cannot expect students of the language to know when and when not to use the dash, so just keeping it in all the time for simplicity will benefit them, as well as the consistency anyway. Iamandrewrice 12:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Voccabulary

The problems for reader who need basic english is not really the voccabulary. The problems is the misunderstanding. Lexical ambiguity is of course a problem but grammar should be simple. So more terms should be used. Perhaps, a test should be an automatic translation to german (or other, for example) and retranslation to english. If the text can't be understand, that is an Ambiguity. 86.72.170.234 12:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

add examples for the rules

I had a hard time understanding what the rules mean. Examples might make them more easy to understand. I am a native speaker of English, but I still did not understand what most of the rules were trying to say, especially the second one. 76.118.217.245 06:01, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

those links at the end need to be tidied up

its so unclear what they are... Iamandrewrice 12:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

cup illustration inappropriate

The photograph illustrating the word cup is inappropriate because the cup is sitting on a saucer, which is a word not in the Basic English word list. Kensor (talk) 01:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Other Languages

Do other languages have this kind of concept as well? If so it might be helpful to link to articles (or create them) on this subject.--Crossmr (talk) 04:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Software for "Basic English"

For the first time I read about the "Basic English" in the WIki and created a free program specifically for set of words "Basic English" Can I place a link to it?

• "Basic English" on Your Phone (Mobile Tutor)

SergF (☎) 2 July 2009

Hello, Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links. You are, however, encouraged to add information instead of links to the encyclopedia. Regards, -- Mercy (☎|✍) 10:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I really help much relevant links from the Wiki. Sometimes even more than the text. SergF (☎) 2 July 2009

Questions to the Mercy. 1. You can add links, or not at all (from your answer I did not understand)? 2. My link spam or not spam? 3. To link Basic English Utility is advertising, but why you did not delete? 4. It may be to create a partition software to link with the software (How Practical use)?SergF (☎) 2 July 2009

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English Improve

Hi, I want to improve my english if you help me I am always try to speak but i forget words so help me about this — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atiq Ur Rehman (talk • contribs)

BASIC : Britisch American Scientific Industrial Commercial

The version currently given in the article is based on I.A. Richards' acronym for BASIC, but it isn't the Ogden acronym indication. Jansegers (talk) 21:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, the two of them were closely associated, and co-wrote The Meaning of Meaning, so I think Richards does have some standing here. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:53, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Star Wars

"Basic English" in short "Basic" is used as intra-galactic language. 83.7.11.15 (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

"Some" articles in the Simple English Wikipedia use only Basic English?

Shouldn't all articles use Basic English here? Gqqnb (talk) 14:23, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

@Gqqnb: The encyclopedia is still being built, so not all articles have been simplified, and most won't be for a long time. We only have a very small userbase here, but we are all trying to write in Simple English. Simple English Wikipedia is a small Wikipedia, nowhere near as big as the regular English Wikipedia. Hockeycatcat (talk) (changes) 15:16, 29 July 2022 (UTC)