That's useful. There's Basic English, with about 1000 words. Using Basic English well is hard. During WWII, the BBC broadcast news to the British Empire countries in Basic English. George Orwell did some of the translations. He found translating to Basic English to be a political act. Ambiguity did not translate. He had to make political statements unambiguous.

That's where 1984's "Newspeak" came from. See "Orwell, the Lost Writings".