Lesson 2: Nouns and Adjectives

New Words

Now that you've mastered your first seven Toki Pona words, let's see a few more! We'll learn two new nouns and three adjectives.

An adjective is a word that describes a noun.

The tall man.

In the above sentence, "tall" is an adjective because it's used to describe the "man."

New Nouns

Toki Pona	English
telo	water, liquid
tomo	house, building, room

Your First Adjectives

Toki Pona	English
suli	big
pona	good, simple, friendly
lili	small

Remember, you can practice these new words in the Practice section for this lesson!

Grammar

Using Adjectives

In English, adjectives come before the noun that they're describing:

The little animal.

But in Toki Pona, adjectives come after the noun that they're describing:

soweli lili.

It takes some time to get used to this, especially if you've only been exposed to languages that have the adjectives listed first.

Constructing Simple Sentences with Adjectives

Just like in lesson 1, you can construct simple sentences using the formula:

NOUN is/are ADJECTIVE.

So the translation for, "The house is big" in Toki Pona, would be, tomo li suli.

Nouns Instead of Adjectives

In English, you can use a preposition with a noun to describe another noun.

A preposition is a word, or group of words, that shows the relationship between a noun and another word in the sentence.

House by the water.

Book of dogs.

Apples in addition to bananas.

In Toki Pona, if you are using the form "of NOUN" to describe another noun, then you will treat the "of NOUN" the same as you do an adjective.

For example, if you're trying to translate, "House of animals," you would say, tomo soweli. This is a bit more natural for native English speakers, as it follows the same ordering, unlike the adjectives.

Practice Sentences

Below are some sentences with a possible English translation. After that, there are some for you to translate yourself. When you're ready to see the answer, click on the box below the question.

Toki Pona to English

1. tomo li suli.
   The room is big.

2. soweli ni li pona.
   This animal is friendly.

3. telo kili li lili.
   The juice ("water of fruit") is small.

4. jan suli.
   The tall person.

5. soweli li suli.
   The animal is big.

English to Toki Pona

1. The pet ("friendly animal") is big.

2. This is a watermelon ("fruit of water").

3. A house of juice ("water of fruit").

4. A large book is good.

5. The female bear.