lukinlook, view, examine, read, watch; eye, seeing organ
kulecolor, pigment; category, genre, flavor
paliwork, practice; create, build, design; put effort toward, take action on
tomoindoor space or shelter e.g. room, building, home, tent, shack
teloliquids e.g. water, gasoline, soda, lava, soup, oil, ink
mokueat, drink, consume, swallow, ingest; food, edible thing
olinlove, have compassion for, respect, show affection to
e particlemarks the direct object
you use the particle e to indicate the direct object, the one being affected by the predicate.
subject predicate direct object
subject li predicate e direct object
ona li pali e tomo
they are building a house
when you want to express more complex ideas, you should often split it up into several sentences.
you can use the words ni or ona to refer to ideas you've already said or are going to say. ni is a bit broader than ona.
mi lukin e jan · ona li pali e tomo mi
i saw a person. they were building our house
i saw the person who is building our house
mi lukin e ni · sina olin e mi
i see this: you love me
moku ni li wawa e jan
this food strengthens people
ijo li musi ike e soweli lili
someone is poorly entertaining the small animals
ona li pali wawa e musi
they are confidently making games
waso li lukin e ni · soweli sina li sin
the bird sees that your pet is new
toki pona has no defined punctuation. the only thing that's necessary is some way to separate sentences.
i opted to use an interpunct inbetween sentences as the only punctuation throughout this course.
it's most common to seperate sentences with a full stop. another common usage is to use colons when there's a ni referring to something in the next sentence.
in sitelen pona it's common to use line breaks, middle dots (), or large spaces to seperate sentences.
mi olin e sina
i love you
telo kule li pona
colourful drinks are tasty
jan ike li lukin e moku mi
an evil person is staring at my food
ona li kule mute
it's very colourful
jan pali mute li kule e tomo moku
many workers painted the restaurant
mi moku e moku sin sina
i eat your new food
i see that you're cute
mi lukin e suwi sina
mi lukin e ni · sina suwi
the animal is eating
soweli li moku
i'm entertaining the workers
mi musi e jan pali
i like this restaurant
tomo moku ni li pona
my girlfriend makes me good
olin mi li pona e mi
i allow you to eat my food
mi ken e ni · sina moku e moku mi
mi pali e kule mute
i make a lot of paint
lukin sina li wawa
your eyes are intense
soweli ona li moku e jan sin
their pet is eating the new guy
mi olin e soweli suwi
i love the cute animal
lili ona li musi
it's funny how small they are