Lesson 3: You and I

New Words

Let's continue our journey through the Toki Pona language by introducing some first and second-person pronouns, along with some new adjectives.

New Nouns

Toki Pona	English
mi	I, me, we
mije	man, male
sina	you
kulupu	community, group
mama	parent

New Adjectives

Toki Pona	English
sin	new, another, fresh
wawa	strong, confident, dependable

Grammar

Using Pronouns

In our previous lesson we used li as "is/are"

ni li ijo

That is something

Our first thought when using either of our new pronouns, mi or sina, would be to do the same thing. Just replace ni in the above sentence with mi and voilà, we have, "I am something."

But we'd be getting ahead of ourselves (although I appreciate the enthusiasm). When it comes to using mi or sina alone as the subject, we don't use li.

mi ijo

I am something

Adjectives

The neat thing about mi and sina is they are so much more than just pronouns. They can also be used as adjectives to describe a noun!

mije mi. kulupu sina.

My man. Your group.

This is a short lesson, but one that opens up the complexity of what we're able to say by quite a bit.

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 sina li suli.
   Your room is big.

2. mi mije.
   I am a man.

3. kulupu soweli li wawa.
   The pack (animal group) is strong.

4. mama sina li suli.
   Your parents are tall.

5. sina jan pona.
   You are a friend.

English to Toki Pona

1. Fresh water is dependable.

2. You are a strong woman.

3. The library ("book building") is a good thing.

4. We are new parents.

5. My community is small.