Answer. Our learning page contains other suggestions. http://ZbEnglish.net/learn/learn.html
A.
Ogden's ideas for a less complex language were developed in English
which was his decision for an international helping language.
However, a person he worked with, I.A. Richards, with Christine Gibson, after
making "English Through Pictures", which uses only Basic English words,
went on to develop the same thing in other languages, covering
French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Hebrew. These books are
paperback books of the 1950s and 60s and are frequently discovered through the
online, out-of-print book stores. Suggestion : First give a look to Advanced Book Exchange,
www.abebook.com, and search for author name : Christine Gibson. (Richards wrote too much.) There are also workbooks.
We recently discovered that Charles Duff worked on this very question. He used Ogden's methods and created a large set of books in several languages.
For a full list of his language books, see Basis and Essentials.
A. Ogden's Basic English is a language that is condenses standard English into 850 words. The language is good English, though without literary pretence, and requires no unlearning to progress to full English.
This is not an introductory grammar site.
In Basic :
Ogden's Basic English is a language that does everything of full English in only 850 words. The language is good English, though not able to do delicate writing of a great language. A person does not need any unlearning to move on to full English.
This is not a website for beginning with the rules of English.
A. Of course, but then you then no longer have Basic English and cannot make claim to
be Basic English. Ogden considered that writings for the public that are 80% Basic are clear enough
to be understood. As a starter language, Ogden provided a path to a fuller English based on the same principles that were used to establish the basic Basic English. This no longer Basic English, but an expanded Basic English, from 850 words to about 2,000, because a learner of Basic English would not be able to understand.
Several organizations have adapted Basic to their uses and given it a new name. The foundation work by C.K. Ogden for Basic English should be acknowledged. Some
of these organizations fail to do this and is in extremely poor taste..
A. Because everybody wants to "improve" Ogden's Basic English to meet their own
ideas of what either an International Second Language or a beginning English language should include. Everyone
has favorite words they cannot live without or want to make Basic more complete. Ogden developed Basic to
be easy to learn and expansion defeats that purposse. His concept of no verbs,
instead to use operators (combinations of only 13 actions {verbs} plus 20 directions {prepositions}) is an example. Some of the Basic vocabulary is characteristically Commonwealth and somewhat dated, but there is a wealth of publications in Basic that would become obsolete if the vocabulary were changed. Many want to structure the language to their own part of the world, which would defeat the commonality of an international world language.
As a starter language, Ogden provided a path to a fuller English based on the same principles that were used to establish the basic Basic English.
However, if the world-wide portion of Basic were to be limited to
a great region, such as Latin America, then the Basic principle of allowed International words could be greatly expanded to include those words common in Spanish and in English. Warning, all the words of Basic English (spanish) would not be understood in Asia.
A. "Simple English" is Basic English with the addition of the most common, other English words. Sometimes another subset is added such as VOA Special English or local language English words. The idea is that
Basic English assures that anything can be expressed, and the common words - mostly redundant, filler words - make the language flow more smoothly. These common words can be learned from context without much effort because they are in common use.
The name "Simple English" also is used for the idea to communicate in uncomplicated ways -- use short sentences, one idea per sentence, use simple grammar, avoid college level words or jargon, and so forth.