Technomancy

Basic English is a simplified version of English that was created in the 1930s to make it easier for non-native speakers to learn the langauge. It has a list of about 1,500 words. I'm interested in learning more languages and one idea is to take this list of words, translate them into the desired language (eg Swahili) and then learn those words. That should give me a passing idea of that language. I've played around with a few rote learning programmes that help me learn a language. I'll have to blog about them.