lukin - eye; look at, see, examine, observe, read, watch; look for, seek
kule - colourful, pigmented, painted
pali - do, take action on, work on; build make, prepare
tomo - indoor space; building, home, house, room
telo - water, liquid, fluid, wet substance; beverage
moku - to eat, drink, consume, swallow, ingest
olin - love, have compassion for, respect, show affection to
e - marks the direct object
pali is not a general do like in english. every word in toki pona has the act of doing built into it when used as a verb.
i did this
~ mi ni
you use the particle e to indicate the direct object, the one being affected by the predicate.
subject li predicate e direct object
jan li pali e tomo
~ the people are building a house
when you want to express more complex ideas, you should often split it up into several sentences.
you 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.
i saw the person who's building the house
~ mi lukin e jan · ona li pali e tomo
~ i saw a person. they were building a 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
jan li musi ike e soweli lili
~ the person 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.
usually, it's very common to separate sentences with a full stop. when there's a ni referring to an idea in the next sentence, a colon is often used instead.
i love you
colourful drinks are tasty
an evil person is staring at my food
it's very colourful
many workers painted the restaurant
i eat your new food
mi lukin e suwi sina
mi lukin e ni · sina suwi
soweli li moku
mi musi e jan pali
tomo moku ni li pona
jan olin mi li pona e mi
mi ken e ni · sina moku e moku mi
i allow this · you eat my food