nudel wrote:
Dussel wrote:
nudel wrote:
Simple English Wiki is meant to be read by people who are learning English as a foreign language. Readers have a limited vocabulary, they might know the verb "speak", but not "communicate".
Bad example: It is more like likely that a person learning English would know "communication" than "to speak": German: "Kommunikation", French: "communication", Italian: "comunicazione", Spanish: "comunicación" ect.
I used it because the sentence "When people talk to each other, they use spoken words to communicate." was ridiculed in this thread.
Also I don't concede your point. For anyone learning English, "to speak" will be one of the first words they learn. However "communication" will only be understood by someone whose native language contains this particular latin loanword.
This particular Latin word is common in almost all European languages.
But it is very difficult to say what is "simple" for a non-native speaker of a language. English isn't my first languages and for me a complex, but formal, text is much easier to understand than e.g. slang. It is for me easier to read or to understand BBC Radio 4, the Financial Times or Charles Dickens than let say "The sun", the most notorious tabloid in Britain.
25 Feb 2009, 3:24 am
