Free Basic English, Basic Spanish and Basic French Now Available on Google Play

PsySoftware has released three Android apps in its Basic Languages series for learning the essential vocabulary of English, Spanish, and French — Basic English, Basic Spanish, and Basic French.

🇬🇧 Basic English — 851 words
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.psysoftware.basicenglish

🇪🇸 Español Básico — Basic Spanish — 1,279 words
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.psysoftware.basicspanish

🇫🇷 Français Basique — Basic French — 1,577 words
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.psysoftware.basicfrench

All three apps are built around a basic vocabulary necessary for fluent communication and understanding. The main idea behind the “basic vocabulary” system is that before trying to memorize thousands or tens of thousands of foreign words, it makes sense to master a relatively small core vocabulary — a set of the most important words selected according to their frequency of use, versatility, and importance in everyday communication.

A basic vocabulary is not simply an arbitrary selection of the “most popular words.” Such vocabularies are compiled on the basis of linguistic analysis of the language, taking into account how frequently words occur in real speech and texts, their semantic versatility, their ability to express fundamental concepts, and the possibility of using them to explain other words.

The best-known example of this approach is Basic English, developed by British linguist and philosopher Charles Ogden. His system consists of just 850 carefully selected English words that can be used to express a vast number of everyday concepts without having to immediately master a vocabulary of many thousands of words.

Basic English became the foundation for the first app in the series. When creating the modern version, the classic vocabulary was reviewed and revised to reflect contemporary English. The resulting app contains 851 words.

There is no ready-made direct equivalent of Ogden’s classic list for Spanish or French, so the basic vocabularies for these languages were compiled using the same selection principle. The most frequently used words essential for everyday communication were selected to provide the most useful vocabulary possible while keeping the total number of words to be learned relatively small. As a result, Español Básico contains 1,279 words, while Français Basique contains 1,577.

The purpose of the Basic Languages series, therefore, is not to teach an entire language with just a few hundred words, but to provide the vocabulary foundation from which it makes sense to begin learning a language. By knowing the most commonly used words, learners encounter familiar vocabulary much more often in speech and text, gain the ability to understand the general meaning of phrases, and can gradually expand their vocabulary from that foundation. For Spanish and French, the app vocabularies cover almost all the words included in the A1 and A2 levels.

All three apps offer three learning modes. The first introduces the word, its translation, and its pronunciation. You can listen to a word several times and practice its pronunciation. Automatic word scrolling can be enabled. You can study sets of 5 or 10 words, or work through the entire vocabulary at once.

In the second mode, you have to recognize a foreign word from its translation. You are shown the translation and, for some words, an image, while the word itself is played aloud. You then have to choose the correct word from four options. The pronunciation can be replayed several times.

The third mode requires you to type the correct word yourself, moving from passive recognition to active recall. First, you hear the word and see its translation and, for some words, an image. If you do not begin typing within a few seconds, progressively more detailed hints appear on the keyboard: first you see how many letters the word contains, then which letters the word consists of, and at the third hint stage you are shown which letter should be entered next. In this way, the spelling of the word and the connection between its pronunciation and written form are actively memorized.

Each app supports 18 languages. One is the language being learned, while the other 17 can be used as the base language. This means, for example, that English can be learned not only from Russian or Ukrainian, but also from French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and other supported languages.

The series has a history of its own. Evgeniy Lenov released the first Basic English program for Windows in 2000. It was written in pure WinAPI, occupied just 44 KB, and became fairly widely distributed at the time. In its categories on software download sites, Basic English ranked among the three most downloaded programs.

It was followed by Basic English 2.0 Technics, featuring a technical vocabulary of more than 2,000 words, and later by Basic Italian — a version for learning Italian with a vocabulary of more than 3,000 words compiled by an Italian language teacher from Italy.

A new version, Basic English 3.0, was also developed, although it was never officially released. It was the first to implement the developer’s own learning method: learning words by typing what you hear. The user hears a foreign word and has to type it independently, creating a connection between the sound of the word and its correct spelling.

Twenty-six years later, this idea has returned in the Android versions of Basic Languages. The modern Basic English, Español Básico, and Français Basique effectively continue the development of the concept that began back in 2000, including the learning method from the never-released Basic English 3.0.

After 26 years, the idea has found new life on Android. The core principle of the original program has remained unchanged: instead of overwhelming users with a huge vocabulary, it first helps them learn the relatively small set of words that provides the greatest practical benefit. And it does this in a game-like format, easily and without strain — the new vocabulary literally makes its way into the subconscious and stays there forever.

All three Basic Languages apps are now available on Google Play.