Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Simple English Wikipedia was started as a response to needs of English learners (EAL students) and English teachers. The pages there are less complex, and can be used for free readings in the classroom, computer activities, and so on. Non-English Wikipedias can also be translated from the articles here.
[edit] What Simple English Wikipedia is
The Simple English Wikipedia uses fewer words and simpler grammar than the original English Wikipedia. It is also focused on readers who tend to be quite different from the typical Wikipedia reader, and with different needs, for example, people for whom English is not a first language, students, children, translators, and people with learning disabilities.
Major contributions of articles to the Simple English Wikipedia did not begin until there were already over 150,000 articles in the original English Wikipedia and over 15,000 articles in each of seven other languages.
In general, Simple English articles are simplifications of the most important points in existing articles, rather than being new. This is likely to make Simple English articles a good way to introduce complex English ones - if someone has trouble understanding a concept in complex English they can "fall back" to the Simple version.
[edit] Simple English
Simple English is like English but only easy words are used.
It is suggested that articles be simplified using only the 1000 most common and basic words in English and less complex grammatical structures—such as shorter sentences—or to conform to a certain skill level in one of the standard indices. Of course, original submissions are also welcome; in that case, they could be submitted both to this and to the main Wikipedia (where it is written in the normal level of English). Most articles will require about 2000 words, a full defining vocabulary that is useful to explain English idiom. This is still simpler English than most "English as an additional language" students can read after a few months of learning.
- Main Page -- The front page of the Simple English Wikipedia project.
- Simple English Wikipedia -- An expanded description of the project's goals and the simple form of English used there.
