The vocabulary for this page: word meaning e (specifies an object) ijo thing, object ilo tool, machine, device lipu book, document, paper lukin eye, to look, to see, to seek to olin love, compassion, affection pali to do, to work, to make, labor pana to give, to send, to emit telo water, fluid, to water, to clean tomo home, room, structure To add a verb to the sentence, use the following structure: [noun] li [verb] For example, mije li pali. - A man is working. / A man works. Both the noun and the verb can have adjectives added after it. If added after a verb, the adjective functions as an adverb. jan wawa li pali pona. - A strong person is working well. There is no way to determine whether a word in such a sentence is an adjective or a verb. For example, the phrase "mi moku" can mean either "I am eating" or "I am food". Verbs don't have any tense information in them. A way to specify time will be explained in a later page. To add an object -- the thing that the verb applies to -- use the particle "e" for a following structure: [subject] li [verb] e [object] jan wawa li pali e tomo. - A strong person is (building/working on) a house. Objects can also have adjectives added to them. jan pali li pana e moku pona. - A worker gives out good food. Here are some sentences: jan pona mi li pona e ilo lukin. - My friend is (improving/fixing) a looking instrument (glasses, binoculars, microscope, etc.). mi telo e moku. - I clean the food. mi olin e meli mi. - I love my wife. Since the word "lukin" itself describes the act of seeing someone, rather than their appearance, complimenting someone on the latter would usually be expressed as: sina pona lukin. - You look good (are "good visually"). Exercises Now, try to figure out the meaning of these sentences. jan lili li pana e telo lukin. ona li lukin e lipu. soweli ike li utala e meli. jan utala li moku e kili suli. soweli lili li moku e telo. mi telo e ijo suli. And try to translate the following sentences into toki pona. She loves every person. The bathroom ("house of water") is good. I hand out documents. An evil warrior is looking at your house. My tools are working well. Answers Previous page Top page Next page
