Lesson 0: Letters and Sounds

Letters

Unlike English, the Toki Pona language consists of just 14 letters:

      a e i j k l m n o p s t u w

With the vowels being bolded.

Pronunciation

Vowels

There are 5 vowels. Their pronunciations are mapped in the following table:

Letter	Pronunciation
a	'ah’ like 'spa' and 'haha'
e	'eh’ like ‘let’ and ‘mess’
i	'ee’ like ‘key’ and ‘seem’
o	'oh’ like ‘toe’ and ‘know’
u	'oo’ like ‘tooth’ and ‘mood’

Consonants

That leaves 9 consonants. Each consonant is pronounced how you would expect it to be...except for 'j'. The letter 'j' is pronounced like the English pronunciation of 'y'. So if you saw the Toki Pona word, jo, you would pronounce it as yo.

This is similar to how the German language pronounces the letter 'j'.

Stress

The stressed part of a word is the syllable that is said a bit louder and at a higher pitch than the rest of the syllables.

Say the word, "banana", out loud. You would pronounce it like, 'ba-NA-na', where the 'NA' is a bit higher pitched. Try and pronounce it as, 'BA-na-na'. It doesn't work. The 'NA' part of banana is the stressed syllable.

In Toki Pona, the stress always falls on the first syllable of the word.

If the above explanation wasn't clear enough, or if you just want to learn more, then you should check out the Wikipedia entry.

Capitalization

Toki Pona words are written in lowercase. This includes words that start a sentence!

Right: ni li ijo.

Wrong: Ni li ijo.

Putting It All Together

Now let's practice. Using the above rules, how would you pronounce, "Toki Pona"? Take a moment to think about it and when you're ready, click the box below to reveal the answer.