Toki Pona Forums

tenpo mute la jan sin pi toki pona li wile sona e ni. taso nanpa suli li ike tawa jan pi toki pona.
sina ken toki e ni :
mi jo e kili mute li moku e kili wan. (I ate one of my many bananas)
anu :
mi jo e kili wan li moku e wan lili pi kili ni. (I ate a bit of my apple)
pona. mi tawa.

"Give me one third of the pie" :

o pana e ijo pi pan suwi !

"10.3 per cent of the population were killed during that war" :

jan mute li moli lon utala.

wan : part
ijo : something

wan pi pan suwi ni : a part of this cake
ijo pi pan suwi ni : some of this cake (?)

Frankly, I don't know if my use of "ijo" in this case is correct ! Perhaps, I have been misled by thinking in German (etwas = something = some).

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2244 I think we can... wan la jan li wile e ni tawa weka pi ma "Afganistan": ma lawa li pali. jan sona pi ma "Germany" li toki e ni: jan utala lawa li ijo pakala. ona mute li toki e ni: jan lawa pi mute ike li ken ala lukin e nimi sitelin ...

ma Isilan la nena seli li kama pali. kiwen lili mute li tawa sewi li jaki e kon. kon jaki li tawa ma Elopa. kon jaki li ken pakala e tomo tawa kon. tan ni la tomo tawa kon li awen lon ma. jan mute li wile kepeken e tomo tawa kon li ken ala. ona li kepeken e poki tawa ona sama supa monsi li awen. mi ...

mi wile pali. I want to work. I have to work. Context isn't going to resolve this. I think, the underlying idea is that you only "have to" do something if you "want to" do it. E. g. : someone threatens you with a gun and says : "Hands up !". But you only "have to&q...

Do you really want to say three sentences for "rubber" and three others for "glue" ? I suggest you migrate mentally to tokiponaland and say something like :

telo jaki pi uta akesi li ken ala pakala e waso sewi.

e.g. :

ni li tomo tawa mi en meli mi.

(this is my car and my wife vs. this is a house for me and my wife)

jan Kanso

Title of an article in an Australian newspaper : "British left waffles on Falklands" !

[quote="janKipo"]Wouldn't the first reading strictly require 'pi'?

no : "ni li tomo tawa pi mi en meli mi" means : "This is my and my wife's house"