Better English

May 30, 2026.

Version 2.0 - 2026-05-02

What is this?

The goal is to create a system that would allow the same depth of thought that English do, but with more consisent and logical syntax.

.goal of this be to create system that allowu same depth of thought that english does ,but with more consistent and logical syntax

In practice, this "Better English" is unfortunately not practical to use in real life. Because English speakers are not used to it, and it will hinder communication (which is why, as you can see, I only write in level 1 better English).

Level 1 rules

Level 1 rules are those that you can (and maybe should) use in everyday English. A native English speaker can understand level 1 just as well as normal English.

Remove unimportant grammar rules

For example:

"To whom did you give the money?" is technically more "correct" than "Who did you give the money to?"
"If that were true ..." is technically more "correct" than "If that was true ..."

These rules do nothing to help you communicate better. They just add complexity.

Often, people use these rules to show the listener/reader that they know the rule. It's an attempt to make you look smarter. (At least, that's why I used to use them.) But that's stupid.

Level 2 rules

These rules are noticable, but they do not affect how easy your writing is to understand. However, they may make your writing look less professional, for example.

In effect, this looks rather similar to common texting styles.

Everything is lowercase

This is includes even proper nouns.

Capital letters are kind of useless, and they add so much complexity to the system. For example, "a" and "A" are two completely different symbols. It's not as if "A" is just a bigger "a". It might seem simple to someone who knows a Latin-based language. But someone learning English from Mandarin, for example, will wish there were no capital letters.

Not just that, but what value do capital letters actually add?

The biggest value capitialization adds is they make paragraphs more scannable. You can semi-easily tell where sentences begin and end just by looking at where the "big letters" are.

However, I do not feel that is a valid enough reason to add so much complexity to a language. In fact, you could achieve the same effect (being able to scan paragraphs easily) by putting two spaces between sentences, instead of one. However, I would rather not do that.

Simplify common words

The biggest example is "you". That is two too many letters for a word that is literally pronounced "u". Not just that, but "I" is one letter as well. We don't write "Aye" or "Eye". Instead, we just do "I".

"you" -> "u"

Plural words always have "s" or "es" at the end

Take, for example, the word "geese". Why is the plural of "goose" "geese"? And why is the plural of "moose" not "meese"?

We can make this a general rule and say, every plural word must end in an "s".

geese -> gooses

No "do" in questions

These are empty words that don't add any meaning.

Instead of "Do you want to?", say "You want to?"

Instead of "Does that make sense?", say "Make sense?"

Level 3 rules

Level 3 rules change English into something simpler and better. However, they are harder to understand to a native English speaker, because you are not used to the rules.

Punctuation goes at the beginning of sentences

Let's take this sentence: "This is a really long sentence, and you won't know that I'm yelling it until the end!"

Now take this: "!This is a really long sentence ,and you know I'm yelling it from the start"

This is similar to what Spanish does. Except it puts the punctuation at the start and end of the sentence. However, I don't think it adds much value, and it makes it take longer to write.

ex: "hi. i am cool!" -> ".hi !i be cool"

No article (ex: the/a)

They don't add much value to the sentence. There isn't much difference between "the dog" and "a dog" and "dog".

So instead of "the dog has a tail", you would write "dog has tail".

Verbs are always in infinitive form

Maybe it's just me, but I always found verb forms to be so needlessly complex.

English's verb form isn't too bad. The extent of it is really just "he walks" vs "they walk".

But other languages (like German or Spanish) have multiple different ways to say the same verb depending on gender of the verb, and what type the subject is. Spanish does something interesting with this, where you can drop the subject, because the verb already tells you what the subject is. For example, you don't need to say "Yo como ...", you can just say "Como ..."

The ideal verb form is just the infinitive. In other words, there is only one way to say a verb (though past/present/future tense will change it slightly).

So instead of "I am Levi. He is Bob. Who are you?", you say ".i be levi .he be bob ?who be u" The same exact meaning is communicated in both of these.

Another example: "He runs sometimes." -> ".he run sometimes"

Past and future tense

Past tense should always adds "d" or "ed" to the end.

This is actually what children tend to do when they learn English, before they know all the words.

For example:

I went to the store. -> .i goed store
I made a cake -> .i maked cake

Future tense should always ad "wu" to the end.

I forgot why I originally chose "wu". But I remember it was rather arbitrary--and I thought it was easy to say and wouldn't conflict with words.

For example:

I will go to the store -> .i gowu store

Nouns only have subject form

There are 3 different ways to say "he". You can say, "he", "him", or "his". That's too much complexity.

Now, there is a real reason for these different noun forms. For example, "I gave him her book." "him" and "her" are both conveying meaning. The bad part, though, is that there is no simple rule that differentiates why the words are spelled that way. What I mean by this is "H

To make this simple, we say that only the subject form exists, and whenever you need to say that something is possesive (ex: "his"), then you just add "'s" to the end.

So this becomes: ".i gived he she's book"

The reason we remove the object form ("him"), is because it doesn't actually communicate anything of value. You can understand just as well without it.

Here are some more examples:

He loves her. -> .he love she
Where is my phone? -> ?where be i's phone
Her dog is funny. -> .she's dog be funny
Your shoes are nice. -> .u's shoes be nice

All adverbs end in "ly"

For the most part, adverbs are consisent and end in "ly". But not all of them. Better English just makes this a general rule.

For example, "He runs fast" becomes ".he run fastly"

To make a verb negative, put "no" before it

This is a very common feature of many languages. Spanish is a prime example.

For example, to say "He didn't like her", say "he no like she".

To say something like "I am running", use "be" + infinitive

This is what German does.

For example, "I am running", becomes "i be run". And "I was running" becomes "I beed run".

I will admit, the "beed" looks a little stupid. But I would argue it is no more stupid than many English words. Like why is "ballet" pronounced "bah-lay"? Or why is "bologne" pronounced "boh-loh-nee"?

Better alphabet

it should go like this

a e i o u y -- b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w x z

(vowels) -- (consonants)

Stress-testing Level 3

In English, "I am a cook" and "I am cooking" are different, and you can tell that "cook" is a noun, because of the article ("a").

In Better English, this would "i be cook" in both scenarios. However, in practice, this isn't a huge deal. Because you would find other ways to differentiate the meaning. For example you would say "i be cook food" to say "I am cooking food". This is understandable because you are not going to say "I am a cook food".

Here is the opening paragraph of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's stone:

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Here is it in Level 3:

.mr and mrs dursley, of number four, privet drive, beed proud to say that they beed perfectly normal, thank u very much .they beed last peoples u expected to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just no holded with such nonsense

This is an example of tough grammar that this system can still handle.

English:

By the time you arrive, I will have been cooking food for three hours.

"Better":

.by time u arrive ,i bewu cook food for 3 hours already

In this, the "already" puts it in the past. This is the most ideal solution. But from a stress-testing standpoint, it's a bit of a hack. So if we avoid using the "already", it looks like this:

.by time u arrive ,i bewu beed cook food for 3 hours

In other words:

i bewu - i will be
beed cook - cooking (in the past)

This is a bit complex, but no more so than "will have been cooking" (which is already needlessly complex in English). If anything, "bewu beed cook" is more concise and less overwhelming (anecdotally).

The below ideas are work-in-progresses

Level 4

Let's get serious now.

Words must look exactly how they sound

Read "though," "through," "bough," and "cough". They are spelled almost identically but pronounced entirely differently.

a = ah, like apple
ae = ay, like name
o = oh, like dog
oe = oh, like foe
ee = ee, like free
u = uh, like mug

ie bee leevie hahnlehn

due = doo

Level 5

Throw out the letters.

One way you could do this is with my shorthand. However, that is built for normal English, and we can do something better with Better English.