Step 1 - Reading and Writing

Covers: 1a 1b 1c 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 2j 2k 3 4a

This step will basically be everything we need to know before putting actual words together, like learning to read and pronounce stuff. The rules in this category fall under Phonetics and Phonology.

First off, there are 2 ways to write Toki Pawole. The latin alphabet, what you’re reading this text in right now, and Lapisa Pawole, a logography like what Mandarin does.

In Lapisa Pawole, words are arranged left to right, or top to bottom. To end a sentence, you can:

1. Add a sizable space.

2. Add a line break.

3. Or you can add an ending sentence dot, which might be confused for a dot of the previous glyph.

If you're using the Latin alphabet to write Toki Pawole, then there are only 14 letters.^[1a] Letters do not need to be capitalized, and each letter is pronounced one way, the same as in the IPA.^[1b] Click the links to get linked to the wikipedia article for each sound. These are the vowels, which are sounds you make by wiggling your vocal cords with your mouth open:

And these are the consonants, sounds you make by restricting airflow in a place in your mouth. They're mostly pronounced the same as English, except j is pronounced like English y.

For a language, only having 14 separate sounds is pretty low. English has around 40, and Spanish has 24. The amount of sounds in Toki Pawole is deliberately low. By having fewer sounds, you lower the number of sound distinctions, and this makes pronunciation easier for speakers of any language.

A phoneme is the abstract representation of a sound. It's kind of like saying "The s sound in English." Even though s makes different sounds in the word "span" and "is." Slashes represent them. A phone is the actual sound being made. You use the IPA for this. The s sounds in "span" and "is" would be two different phones. [s] and [z]. Brackets represent them. Phonemes are allowed to change pronunciation, but phones aren't.

All this shows that phones are allowed to shift to "fit the mouths" of the people pronouncing them.^[1c]

Syllables are "beats" of speech. For the most part, in Toki Pawole, most syllables contain only one vowel. There are no diphthongs, which occur when multiple vowels are pronounced within a single syllable, as in the word “fire.” ^[2a] The only exception is n, which has no vowel.

Syllables can also have a starting consonant, which can be any consonant. Syllables that don’t have a starting consonant can only occur at the beginning of a word. For example, a•ke•ti, with three syllables, has one without a starting consonant. But that syllable is the first syllable, so it’s still allowed.^[2b]

Syllables can end with n. Not all syllables end with it. lan•pan has both syllables ending with n. ko•mu•mo has no syllables that end with n. lin•ja has both types.^[2c]

Words are made of up to 3 syllables. a, nun and in have 1 syllable, po•ka, sin•pin and kon•ta have 2 syllables, and ma•ka•lan, ti•wa•ta and ti•je•lo have 3 syllables.^[2d]

nm and nn are not allowed in any word at all, along with wu and ji. So are double vowels, like ai or ua, but the above rules make these impossible.^[2e][2f]

All these rules add up to make this chart, showing every possible syllable in Toki Pawole. You don’t have to memorize this chart though, because it’s much easier to memorize the rules.

Stress is emphasis given to a syllable, by saying it louder, longer or higher. It’s the difference between “object,” as in “Hand me that object.” and “object,” as in “Your honor, I object!” Stress is placed on the first syllable of each Toki Pawole word.^[2g]

Words are separated by spaces, sentences are separated by periods, question marks or exclamation points, depending on the tone of the sentence, or line breaks.^[2k] If a sentence is at the end or by itself, it does not need a period at the end.

Just like English, pauses can occur due to punctuation and moving through different parts of the sentence. For example, have you realized that at the end of questions in English, your voice starts to rise in pitch? (Try it on questions like “What?” or “Who?”) Stressing sentences based on tone/punctuation isn’t necessary due to how Toki Pawole structures its sentences, but I recommend it because it makes you sound less robotic.^[2h][2i]

Words are the smallest unit of meaning in Toki Pawole. In English, you can break words down into parts that still mean something. “Indestructable,” “in-” means not, “-destruct-” means destroy, “-able” means able. In Toki Pawole, breaking words down doesn’t work like that. Words mean what they mean, not what their pieces mean.^[3]

There are 312 separate standard words in the Toki Pawole dictionary, like leko, lupa, liso and la.^[4a] We will learn about all of them in the following 11 steps. In this step, we covered 15 out of the 59 rules of Toki Pawole. That’s a little over 25%! We’re on our way.

(Next is Step 2 - Simple Sentences)

Step 2 - Simple Sentences

Covers: 5a 5b 5c 11a 11b 11c 11d

Now it’s time to make some actual sentences! Starting with vocabulary. At the beginning of each step, I’ll introduce a few new words. Such as:

And the foci of this step, e e and li li. They are a type of word particles. Particles have no meaning attached to them. Instead, they help rearrange other words to build the sentence's shape. This is opposed to content words, which have meaning and refer to actions, things, manners, degrees or qualities.^[11a]

The shape of a typical sentence in English is like this. The subject goes at the beginning of the sentence. The subject is the thing the sentence is talking about. The verb goes in the middle. The verb is what the subject is doing. The object goes at the end. The object recieves the verb from the subject.

In the sentence "I ate a sandwich," "I" is the subject, "ate" is the verb, and "a sandwich" is the object. This means that English has a SVO (subject-verb-object) word order. Not all sentences have an object though, and the verb and object together is called the predicate.

Toki Pawole also has the same word order.^[5a] The predicate particle li li separates the subject from the predicate.^[5b] It introduces a verb, which means whatever comes before is doing whatever comes after.

Here's a reminder that sentences in toki pawole can mean lots of different things at once, because the semantic spaces are very large. jan li pali can mean "Humankind creates," "A person is building," or "People do."^[11b]Most Toki Pawole words don't specify time, place, gender, purpose, amount etc. Like the word "umbrella" doesn't specify what color the umbrella is, jan doesn't specify how many people there are, or where they are, or when they are. You'll figure out how to specify those things in a later step.^[11c]

That means this:

can mean any one of these:^[11d]

li works differently with pronouns. Pronouns are words that stand in for other words, so you don't have to keep saying them over and over again. Think words like "he," "hers," "it," "themself," etc. The pronouns we introduced in this step are mi mi, si si, on on and ni ni. It's standard to drop li after mi and si, but for on and ni, it's optional to drop li.

So these would be correct:

And these are wrong.

You can use e e to introduce the object. Use it after the verb to add a recipient to the verb.

Toki Pawole doesn't have words like "a" or "the," so you can imply them when translating to English.

Putting e right after the subject turns it into a copula. Like the word "is" in "He is a person," or "That is orange," e right after a subject is used to introduce nouns and modifiers.

Here, try it for yourself! See if you can translate the sentence from Toki Pawole to English, then click on the spoiler to reveal it. Remember that Toki Pawole sentences can mean a wide variety of different things, so it doesn't matter if your translations aren't exact.

And see if you can translate these from English to Toki Pawole:

In this step, we went over 24 out of 312 Toki Pawole words, and next, we'll introduce 36 new ones!

(Next is Step 3 - Complex Sentences)

Step 3 - Complex Sentences

Covers: 5d 5e 5f 5g 6a 6b 6c 6d

Before we start, try to see if you can translate these sentences:

In this step, we'll go over complex sentences with more parts than usual. But first, new pronouns!

When you repeat li, you are introducing multiple verbs and making it so the subject is doing two things. Usually the things that come later happen after or are subservient to things that come before. Also, notice how ona is referring to the books in this case.^[5d]

e works similarly here. The two objects come after the two verbs.

Duplicating li after mi and si is tricky, because you drop li after those pronouns. There are 3 posibilities:

1. Go without li.

2. Re-add li.

Both are valid.

There is no limit to how many verbs you can have to a subject. They don’t even have to match. One verb can have an object, and the other can be intransitive.

You can even have multiple objects to a verb.

Mixing copulas in with verbs and repeating them is an option too, but be careful. There’s a certain order you have to put them in.^[5e]

The first translation is wrong, while the second is correct. To say the first translation, you have to rearrange your sentence so that the copula comes before any verbs.

But what if you want multiple subjects? Well, that’s where en en comes in. en en goes in between subjects to show that multiple things are doing the verb.^[5e]

Replacing li with eki eki or eta eta changes the tense of the verb. Tense is when the verb occured. eki is for future tense, and eta is for past tense. You do not drop these after mi and si.

Finally, you can use anu in the subject, verb, object, or after the copula to add another posibility, like the word "or."^[5g]

This was the first half, where we went over how to duplicate parts of sentences. Here is the vocab for the second half:

And the foci, pi pi and ipi ipi. In the English sentence, "I saw the big red ball," "big" and "red" act as modifiers to "ball." You can do this in Toki Pawole too, except they come after what they modify.^[6a]

You can add as many modifiers as you like, and they all modify everything that comes before them.

In English, you have to say "big red ball," and not "red big ball," but there isn't a set order like this in Toki Pawole, except for a few exceptions.

When you use a pronoun as a modifier, then it shows ownership. Most of the time, pronouns should go last.^[6b]

pilin pilin is a useful word. You can use it with pona or ike or other words to describe how you feel.

Also, here's a reminder that Toki Pawole is subjective, so when you say something is good or bad, you're saying it in your opinion.

But here's a problem. Let's say you want to talk about a tool of long rope. You could say:

But that would mean:

What's the difference? A tool of long rope would be a grappling hook, which itself isn't long or ropey. However, a long rope-tool would be a climbing rope, because it is long, and a rope-tool.

It would be nice if we had a way to group linja tiju together, so it modified ilo. Oh wait, there is!

pi takes everything after it, groups it and makes it modify whatever comes before it. You can even have multiple pi, but be carerful, they'll nest and keep modifing smaller and smaller things!^[6c]

ipi closes the previous group and opens a new one, that modifies whatever came before the previous group. ^[6d]It un-nests the modifiers. These uses of pi and ipi are called modifier phrases, and the thing(s) that the modifier(s) are modifying is called the head word(s).

Now try it for yourself! See if you can translate the sentence from Toki Pawole to English, then click on the spoiler to reveal it. Remember that Toki Pawole sentences can mean a wide variety of different things, so it doesn't matter if your translations aren't exact.

And now try translating these from English to Toki Pawole:

In this step, we went over 38 new words, in total that's 62 out of 312 Toki Pawole words, and next, we'll introduce 30 new ones!

(Next is Step 4 - Preverbs)

Step 4 - Preverbs

Covers: 7

Preverbs are verbs that "modify" other verbs in their own way, and they go before the verbs they're "modifying."^[7] The only preverbs are: kokan kokan, open open, pini pini, awen awen, onta onta, sona sona, ken ken, anku anku, kama kama, weka weka, peson peson and wilen wilen.

Preverbs are relatively simple compared to other facets of Toki Pawole. The rest of this step will be about this new vocab:

Here, try it for yourself! See if you can translate the sentence from Toki Pawole to English, then click on the spoiler to reveal it. (Remember that Toki Pawole sentences can mean a wide variety of different things, so it doesn't matter if your translations aren't exact.)

And see if you can translate these from English to Toki Pawole.

Step 5 - Shapes and Sensory

Covers: -

You may notice that this step introduces less vocabulary than others. That’s because this step is primarily focused on how to use vocabulary, and we’ll be adding more words later on. In Toki Pawole, it's often easier to refer to an object by its shape rather than its purpose.

For example, a straw could be called ilo moku ilo moku, meaning "consuming tool." But when it's surrounded by other consuming tools, like a cup, spoon, or plate, it can be unclear which ilo moku you're referring to.

Fortunately, the solution is simple. Straws are tolu tolu. Cups are poki poki. Spoons have dents in them to hold things, so they could be lupa lupa (Two words we learned before.) Plates are flat and hard horizontal surfaces, so they are supa supa.

Along with the shapes of things, you can talk about the materials of things. leko leko for "brick" might be sufficient, but what if you need to talk about what material the bricks are?

len can also mean "to cover," like you would with clothes and cloth.

All of these words refer to body parts, but some of these have other meanings. tijelo tijelo also refers to the shapes of things. koli also means to follow. When body parts are used as the verb, it can sometimes mean "apply," so X li luka X means "X applies their hand to X."

One thing Toki Pawole fixes from toki pona is this: In toki pona "mi moli" can mean both "I kill," and "I am dead." However, "I am dead" in Toki Pawole is mi e moli and "I kill" is just mi moli.

Finally, here's an interesting detail about the word lukin lukin. If you want to say "You look good," your first instinct might be to translate it like this:

But this actually means:

To say someone appears attractive "You are good-looking" you need to treat lukin as describing appearance, not the act of seeing. So, we flip the words and say:

Now that we've finished with this new vocab, try it for yourself! See if you can translate the sentence from Toki Pawole to English, then click on the spoiler to reveal it. (Remember that Toki Pawole sentences can mean a wide variety of different things, so it doesn't matter if your translations aren't exact.)

And see if you can translate these from English to Toki Pawole.

In this step, we went over 42 new words, in total that's 146 out of 312 Toki Pawole words, and next, we'll introduce 42 new ones!

(Next is Step 6 - Prepositions)

Step 6 - Prepositions

Covers: 8a 8b 8c

All these words talk about the "sides" of things. Insides, outsides, front sides, and this is because this whole step is about prepositions!

In Toki Pawole, prepositions are words that show the position of something relative to something else, or introduce an object. But don't be fooled: e introduces direct objects, and prepositions introduce indirect ones.

Prepositions in English are words like "to," "through," "via," "above," or "of." Sometimes you can introduce an indirect object without a preposition, like in "Give me the book." In this sentence, "me" is the indirect object, and there's no preposition introducing it.

To start, the way you say "at" or "in" is with the Toki Pawole word in in. Prepositions can go after subjects, objects and verbs.

To say what part of the house you're at, you use one of the new words. For example, for the front of the house, use sinpin sinpin.

You can say "to" and "from" using ki ki and tan tan.

Here, try it for yourself! See if you can translate the sentence from Toki Pawole to English, then click on the spoiler to reveal it. (Remember that Toki Pawole sentences can mean a wide variety of different things, so it doesn't matter if your translations aren't exact.)

And see if you can translate these from English to Toki Pawole.

In this step, we went over 42 new words, in total that's 188 out of 312 Toki Pawole words, and next, we'll introduce 42 new ones!

(Next is Step 7 - Infinitives & Numbers)