Lesson Summaries

 

Lesson 2
Topics
1. Toki Pona has consonants jklmnpstw and vowels aeiou.
2. The consonants are pronounced as they are in most Western languages, except that j is like English's letter y.
3. The vowels are pronounced the same as vowels in Esperanto, Italian, and Spanish.

 

Lesson 3
Vocab
Nouns: jan, mi, moku, sina, suno, telo
Verbs/Adjectives: moku, pona, suli
Grammatical words: li
Topics
1. Toki Pona lacks the verb "to be," is often ambiguous, and its verbs have no tense.
2. Any sentence with mi or sina as the subject goes from the subject straight to the verb or adjective.
3. Any sentence with a subject other than mi or sina has li separating the subject and the rest of the sentence.

 

Lesson 4
Vocab
Nouns: ilo, kili, ni, ona, pipi, ma, ijo
Verbs/Adjectives: jo, lukin, pakala, unpa, wile
Grammatical words: e
Topics
1. Direct objects are preceded by e.
2. English's want to (verb) structure becomes wile (verb).
3. Stacking li or e phrases within a sentence is allowed.

 

Lesson 5
Vocab
ike, jaki, lawa, len, lili, mute, nasa, seli, sewi, tomo, utala
Topics
1. Adjectives always follow the nouns that they modify.
2. Toki Pona strings words together into phrases to make more complex meanings. These strings often act as nouns.
3. Possessives with pronouns involved are made by placing the pronoun after the noun.
4. Adverbs are similar to adjectives and follow the verb.

 

Lesson 6
Vocab
kama, kepeken, kiwen, kon, lon, pana, poki, toki, tawa
Topics
1. As a verb, lon essentially means "to be in/on/at," and as a preposition, simply "in/on/at."
2. The li wile e ni: [...] structure helps to fill the role of English's clauses.
3. As a verb, kepeken means "to use." As a preposition, it means "using."
4. tawa can be: an action verb ("to move"), a verb of movement ("to go to"), or a preposition ("to" and "for").
5. When followed by e, kama means "to cause." When preceding another verb, it makes the verb progressive.

 

Lesson 7
Vocab
Nouns, verbs, adjectives: anpa, insa, monsi, sewi
Prepositions (sometimes): sama, tan, poka
Topics
1. The concepts of below, inside, behind, and above are made by using lon with particular nouns.
2. tan, sama, and poka can be prepositions in addition to their other roles.

 

Lesson 8
Vocab
ala, ale/ali, ken, lape, musi, pali, sona, wawa
Topics
1. ala immediately follows whatever word it negates.
2. Yes/no questions are formed by changing the sentence's verb to (verb) ala (repeat the verb).
3. To answer yes/no questions: (verb) means yes, (verb) ala means no.

 

Lesson 9
Vocab
a, awen, mama, mije, meli, mu, nimi, o, pona, toki
Topics
1. Toki Pona does not have grammatical gender. Gender can be ascribed by attaching mije or meli as adjectives.
2. Religions, countries, languages, names, etc. are unofficial words. They are treated like adjectives and must be attached to a noun.
3. To get someone's attention, you say jan (person's name) o.
4. Commands are made with the o (verb) structure.
    4a. For friendly command-like salutations, drop the o.
5. Addressing someone and also giving them a command uses the jan (person's name) o (verb) structure.

 

Lesson 10
Vocab
olin, seme, sin, supa, suwi
Topics
1. For questions that can not be answered with "yes" or "no," write the sentence like normal and then replace the word in question with seme.
2. seme can also be used as an adjective to make other question words.

 

Lesson 11
Vocab
a, awen, mama, mije, meli, mu, nimi, o, pona, toki
Topics
1. pi is used to separate a noun from a modifying noun which has an adjective attached to it.
2. The modiying noun must have an adjective attached to it. Otherwise, pi must be dropped.

 

Lesson 12
Vocab
anu, en, kin, lete, mani, pilin, taso
Topics
1. anu means "or" and can imply a question. You can also form a yes/no question by attaching anu seme? to the end of the sentence.
2. en means "and." For the vast majority of cases, it can be used only in the sentence's subject.
3. When at the beginning of a sentence, taso means "but." Within sentences it can be an adjective or adverb.
4. kin is an intensifier and is used like normal adjectives/adverbs.
5. To describe the temperature outside, use (temperature) li lon.
6. To describe the temperature of specific objects, use (object) li (temperature) pilin.

 

Lesson 13
Vocab
jelo, kule, laso, loje, pimeja, sitelen, walo
Topics
1. Elementary colors can be strung together to describe more colors.
2. To describe objects with multiple distinct colors, use (object) pi (color 1) en (color 2).

 

Lesson 14
Vocab
akesi, kala, kasi, moli, soweli, waso, (also review pipi)
Topics
1. Organisms are classified into six broad categories. Naming organisms within each category is very ambiguous.

 

Lesson 15
Vocab
ko, kute, linja, luka, lupa, nena, noka, oko, palisa, selo, sijelo, sike, sinpin, uta

 

Lesson 16
Vocab
nanpa, tu, wan, weka
Topics
1. Toki Pona has words for "one" and "two." These words also have a few other meanings besides numbers.
2. Although discouraged, these words can be stacked to make higher numbers.
    2a. mute is preferred.
2. Ordinal numbers are made by inserting pi nanpa between the noun and the number.

 

Lesson 17
Vocab
la, mun, open, pini, tenpo
Topics
1. ken la (sentence) means "Maybe (sentence)."
2. (time) la (sentence) can tell when something occurred.
3. (sentence 1) la (sentence 2) means "If (sentence 1), then (sentence 2)."
4. Comparatives and superlatives are made by saying: (thing that is more of something) li (adjective) mute. (thing that is less) li (adjective) lili.

 

Lesson 18
Topics
o pana e sona pi toki pona tawa jan mute.

 

 

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