Lesson 6: Questions and Answers

If you've made it this far then give yourself a pat on the back. You deserve it.

This lesson is, in my opinion, when the Toki Pona language starts to get (relatively) difficult. Luckily, it's not as difficult as say, English or Klingon, so you can handle it. I believe in you.

Let's start with five new words.

New Words

Without further ado, here are your new words:

Toki Pona	English
ilo	tool
kala	fish
ona	he, she, they, it
anu	or
seme	what?, which?

Grammar

As alluded to by both the lesson title and the new words, we're going to learn how to ask some basic "what" questions and "yes or no" questions. Let's start with "what" questions.

"What" Questions

As shown in the above table, seme means "what." To ask a "what" question, put seme in a sentence in the place of the information that you want to ask about. For instance:

What is this?

Translates to:

seme li ni?

Another example:

Which is mine?

Becomes

seme li mi?

Here is an example talking about a specific noun:

Which fruit is bad?

In Toki Pona this would be:

kili seme li ike?

Because we're talking about a specific noun (in the above example, fruit), we have to place seme after that noun, like we would with an adjective. Here's another example:

English:

Which fish is drinking water?

Toki Pona:

kala seme li moku e telo?

However, if we wished to say, "The fish is drinking which water?" we would have to move the position of seme:

kala li moku e telo seme?

Yes or No Questions

You can ask a yes or no question by adding the phrase, anu seme to the end of a sentence. For instance,

sina sin

This means, "you are new," can turn into the question, "Are you new?" by simply adding anu seme:

sina sin anu seme?

If you're translating it literally, it means, "You're new, or what?" But the implied meaning is, "Are you new?"

Now, there is technically a second way to ask yes or no questions, but I'll only mention it briefly. The reason for that is the technical complexity it would introduce to the Practice sections.

Instead of ending with anu seme, the second way is to add ala + the verb from the sentence right after the verb. It's a bit confusing, so let's see an example.

Reworking one of our previous sentences, if we wanted to ask, "Is the fish drinking water?" we would say:

ilo li moku ala moku e telo?

This is a bit more complicated than just sticking anu seme at the end of the sentence. Because of this, and the fact that it would require more complicated assessment and word selection logic, we're not going to use them in this course. It's just something to be aware of in case you see it out in the wild.

Answering Yes or No Questions

To answer a question affirmatively (with a yes), you can repeat the verb from the question. So if someone asks you

ilo li moku e telo anu seme? (Is the fish drinking water?)

you would answer yes with:

moku

If you want to answer a question negatively (with a no), you can repeat the verb followed by ala, or simply say, ala.

moku ala

ala

Wrap Up

Congrats! This lesson covered your first exposure to asking and answering questions. You learned how to ask "what" and "yes and no" questions. Make sure to practice the sentences to make sure forming these questions is second nature to you.

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. ona li jo e soweli mute anu seme?
   Does she have many animals?

2. ona li moku e seme?
   What does he eat?

3. mi jo e ilo toki.
   I have a phone ("talking tool").

4. jan lili li moku e kili anu seme?
   Does the child eat broccoli?

5. sina pali e seme?
   What are you doing?

English to Toki Pona

1. I have a record player ("listening tool").

2. Is that your book?

3. She has a fork ("eating tool").

4. What animals do you have?

5. I am making a fishing rod ("fish tool").