John Lihani, a University of Kentucky Spanish professor emeritus, developed "Transitional English" as a way for people to learn the language quickly. It is the first simplified version of English intended for universal use. Rather than replace traditional instruction, Lihani’s system is particularly suited for people who are not in school but still want to learn English for occasional and limited communication.

For example, his system could allow Latin American shopkeepers to learn to communicate with English-speaking tourists, who make up a growing part of that region’s tourist industry.

Lihani based his approach on research published by scores of linguists who studied pidgin-creole Englishes and foreigner English-talk. He already has tested his version of Transitional English in Slovakia. With the support of a Fulbright grant, he compared the fluency of a group of students instructed in Transitional English to the fluency of a group of students who had taken traditional English instruction. Looking at scores on English tests, he found that his beginning group of Transitional English students scored 80 percent of what intermediate and advanced students scored on the same test. His beginning students had taken only two months of instruction while the traditionally-instructed students had as much as four years of instruction.

"This showed me that with this simplified English, you learn quicker, and that when you go on to standard English, you also will learn that better," Lihani said.

Since then, with help from several colleagues, he has developed an experimental textbook for Spanish speakers interested in learning Transitional English. The textbook is online.

Lihani’s Transitional English uses a lettering system immediately familiar to Spanish speakers in order to make pronunciation easier. For example, native English speakers might stumble over the word "sayd," but native Spanish speakers will recognize its pronunciation as "side."

Lihani also simplifies English by using only subject pronouns, even when used as adjectives or objects. Therefore, "she" is used both as a subject of a sentence and in place of "her." (Hence, "av-shi" -- or "of-she" -- is used for "her".) Adding "-ed" to the verb always creates the past tense, so "mït" (meet) becomes "mïted" rather than "met" and "ït" (eat) becomes "ïted" rather than "ate."

Genny Ballard, a UK Spanish doctoral student from Bardstown, Ky., is preparing to go to Costa Rica next year to train instructors to teach Lihani’s Transitional English.

"English would be useful in Costa Rica because tourism is the number one industry there now. They want to learn English," Ballard said. "Transitional English would help them get to a point where they communicate, which boosts their confidence level. From there, they can continue to improve their English."

Ballard at first was skeptical of Transitional English because the grammar is not always correct. However, she came to appreciate the need to learn English quickly when her husband, a native Costa Rican, came to the United States. He needed to learn English well enough to find work as soon as possible, but took about a year to learn it well enough to get by on his own.

Now, Ballard is anxious to see how Lihani’s version of Transitional English works for Latin Americans trying to learn the language quickly.

An example of Transitional English -- the beginning of the story of Little Red Riding Hood -- follows: