[Foundation-l] Simple Spanish?

Wed Jun 21 23:32:54 UTC 2006

I agree that Spanish is not too difficult, but it will take a lot of effort 
to learn sufficient Spanish to be able to read a Spanish article without 
using a dictionary. A "sencillo" article will be readable without a 
dictionary for anyone with a basic knowlegde of Spanish.

Another advantage is that probable most Italian and Portugese people will be 
able to read "sencillo", without even knowing any Spanish.

Greetings,

Johan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Austin Hair" <adhair at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 12:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Simple Spanish?

> On 6/21/06, Johan Bos <skatinghacker at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Not as far as I know. I just meant articles in simple Spanish words.
>> Readable for people who just understand for example 1500 words.
>
> English is the most widely spoken second language on the planet, the
> lingua franca of international communication; it's also really hard.
> The argument for the "simple English" editions is that with more
> non-native speakers than native ones, a special effort should be made
> to cater to those who haven't quite mastered this undoubtedly
> difficult tongue.  While I don't agree, I do recognize the validity of
> that point of view.
>
> While Spanish may have more native speakers, it doesn't enjoy the same
> ubiquity, and its mostly regular syntax means it doesn't pose the same
> difficulty to novices.  You seem to acknowledge the second point
> yourself when you talk about "sencillo" as nothing more than a
> limited-vocabulary edition of the Spanish Wikipedia.
>
> We're only just starting to recover from the damage done by the
> infamous Enciclopedia Libre fork, and I can't see anyone supporting
> any division of those efforts right now.
>
> Austin
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