A piece called "400 Words in Oklahoma" that Bizeng ran this year had some questioning readers. They wondered if you could communicate anything with only 400 of the most-used words in English. This story -- from a new language course called Globish in Globish™ -- employs only the first 394 most-used words in English for the story below - plus proper names, of course. (The GNG™ technique called "Incremental Immersion" facilitates vocabulary increase of intermediate English students from 350 to 1500 words in about 6 months.)
Tomas was a young boy who always wanted to fish. This small boat was his first work on the water.
"Stay on
course!" said the older man. They
were on the high part of the boat. The older man looked out over the
surface of the
blue water. His
aged eyes
were checking for schools of fish.
Two other men were
sitting down
lower, drinking and
laughing.
Hours ago, they started when the moon was still up. The new sun was small in the east then. Now that sun was the heat right over their heads.
"See any fish yet?" said one of the men from the back.
The older man decided where the fish would be. He saw birds above the water, and the birds came down from the air to eat fish. The old man knew a lot about fish. He would take the men's money for the day, and find fish for them.
"Turn toward the mountains," he told little Tomas. And then to all: "Perhaps the water is full of fish over by that island."
Tomas turned toward the island. There was no
snow on those green mountains.
"That's a good boy. You can go help with their lines." The older man took the wheel from Tomas.
He helped them to put weight on their lines. Then he helped them bring in their fish. It was all a game to these laughing, drinking men. Soon nothing in the back was dry any more.
"You like this work, boy?" said one of the men.
"Yes, I do." said little Tomas. The man handed Tomas some paper money.
"You like that as well," said the drinking man. The two men laughed again.
Just then a very large, very dark shape moved under the boat.
"What was THAT?" said one of the men. He stopped drinking. His eyes were big.
"That's old Big Teeth," said the old man at the wheel, from above. "We always see him out here, but we never can get old Big Teeth in the boat."
Just then the line went out of the hand of the man with big eyes. Tomas tried to get the line before it went into the sea. He missed it at first. Then he got it in his hands, but it pulled him toward the sea. The other man got Tomas' foot, so the fish did not pull Tomas into the water. Tomas was holding with all the force he had.
"That's Big Teeth! " said the older man at the wheel. "We've got Big Teeth!"
"Or he's got us," cried little Tomas.
"I
wonder if
he's a record,"
said the man holding Tomas's foot. "That's our
object out
here, that's the real test… to get a
record fish."
They were all busy pulling on the one common line. Then, in a second, the water parted and the large dark fish was above them, like an airplane. He came down hard in the back of the boat. Big Teeth looked right into Tomas's eyes. Tomas would be his next food.
"That's not
possible!" said one man. Then the two big men
ran away, into the small room with
beds,
under the place where the old man was driving the boat.
They watched Tomas out a small opening.
"He's all yours, boy!" they said, laughing and
filling more drinks.
Big Teeth turned his body toward Tomas, and Tomas ran to the other side of the boat. The large fish moved his head toward Tomas again, trying to eat some part of the little boy.
"My money's on the fish," laughed one of the drinking men. They both stayed inside and looked out the small opening at Tomas.
Tomas could not get away from the large fish. Then he saw weights they used for the fishing lines. He took up the weights, all at once, and brought them down on the head of the large fish. Big Teeth was still now. He was a great fish but now… he was in too much air, and too little water.
"You lose," said one of the drinking men to the other. "And we have a record fish!"
Tomas heard them laughing. Now he looked deep into the eyes of Big Teeth. This large fish needed help. Tomas pulled the big fish to the side of the boat, and helped him back into the water. In a moment, Big Teeth was gone into the sea.
The men came out of the room with their drinks. "What! You gave our fish back to the sea!" He looked hard at the boy. "That fish was our record fish."
The old man came down from his wheel to talk to the two
men. "That was the boy's fish."
"That was our fish. You should do something about that boy, because you're getting our money."
"OK, that's simple: I won't take your money," said the old man. "But I'll take you back now."
"But…But we have money for you. And for the boy, we have a little gold piece…" the man held a small piece of gold up to the sun.
Tomas looked up, and pulled out the paper money the man had given him. "This is yours," he said, handing the money back. "And I don't want your gold. You…will need it…Others will like it, I know."
As the boat turned back to land, Tomas looked back. He thought he saw the head of a large fish saying "See you", in a language only they knew.