Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

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janChowlett
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Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by janChowlett »

sina mute o! nimi mi li Chowlett. mi kama li sona pi toki pona.

... That's about as far as I can manage at the moment (and I hope I haven't mangled it too much!) I read about Toki Pona in a Guardian Online article, and thought I'd give it a try. I'm using memrise's "Toki Pona Complete" course to learn the vocab - I've got about 50 words in so far, and I hope to stick with it.

I think I've got an OK handle on sentence structure, but is there a resource you'd recommend for learning how to construct sentences? Does one of the other memrise courses cover it? Knowing the vocab is well and good, but not very helpful if I can't string it together!
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jan_Lope
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by jan_Lope »

janChowlett wrote:sina mute o! nimi mi li Chowlett. mi kama li sona pi toki pona.

... That's about as far as I can manage at the moment (and I hope I haven't mangled it too much!) I read about Toki Pona in a Guardian Online article, and thought I'd give it a try. I'm using memrise's "Toki Pona Complete" course to learn the vocab - I've got about 50 words in so far, and I hope to stick with it.

I think I've got an OK handle on sentence structure, but is there a resource you'd recommend for learning how to construct sentences? Does one of the other memrise courses cover it? Knowing the vocab is well and good, but not very helpful if I can't string it together!
jan "Chowlett" o, toki!

mi jan Lope.

Memrise is a good way to learn vocab. Here my lessons:
http://rowa.giso.de/languages/toki-pona ... essons.php

BTW: Better than "nimi mi li Chowlett." is "mi jan 'Chowlett'. Every unofficial word, here 'Chowlett' is an adjective and need a noun before, here "jan".

"mi kama li sona pi toki pona." means "I' come and I am the wisdom of Toki Pona."
A "li" is a seperator between any subject except "mi" and "sina" and its verb. But, If you use a second verb phrase with "mi" or "sina", you need "li". So "kama" is the first verb phrase and "sona pi toki pona" the second.
Because "pi" is for complex nouns, your second verb phrase start with a noun ("wisdom").

I think you mean "mi kama sona e toki pona." "e" is a seperator before a direct object.
pona!
jan Lope
https://jan-lope.github.io
(Lessons and the Toki Pona Parser - A tool for spelling, grammar check and ambiguity check of Toki Pona)

On my foe list are the sockpuppets janKipo and janSilipu because of permanent spamming.
janChowlett
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by janChowlett »

jan Lope o, toki!

Thanks for the link to your lessons, and the correction on my mangled phrases!

Let me try to understand the second one. I can see that my first attempt is wrong. Would I be right in saying that "mi kama li sona" could be read as "my approach knows"? But "sona pi toki pona" - "knowledge of Toki Pona" - can't really be read as a verb phrase, so "mi kama li sona pi toki pona" can't be (mi kama) li (verb), so it must be two verbs on 'mi'?

"mi kama sona e toki pona" - that's "mi (I - subject) kama sona (approach knowledge - verb-phrase) e toki pona (Toki Pona - direct object)"? That works, yes, with the compound "kama sona" being "learn".

Would "mi kama e sona pi toki pona" work, albeit more figuratively? "I approach knowledge of Toki Pona"? I think that's probably what I was aiming for!
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jan_Lope
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by jan_Lope »

janChowlett wrote:jan Lope o, toki!
Would I be right in saying that "mi kama li sona" could be read as "my approach knows"? But "sona pi toki pona" - "knowledge of Toki Pona" - can't really be read as a verb phrase, so "mi kama li sona pi toki pona" can't be (mi kama) li (verb), so it must be two verbs on 'mi'?

Would "mi kama e sona pi toki pona" work, albeit more figuratively? "I approach knowledge of Toki Pona"? I think that's probably what I was aiming for!
jan "Chowlett" o, toki!

"mi kama li sona" means: "I come and know". Here are two verb phrases. After a solo "mi" is no "li".

"sona pi toki pona" can be a verb phrase because Toki Pona has no "be".
"ni li sona pi toki pona." ("This is the wisdom of Toki Pona.") Maybe if I mark the mising "be" with an " ' " it is clearer:
"ni li ' sona pi toki pona."
Please see
http://rowa.giso.de/languages/toki-pona ... 0000000000

"mi kama e sona pi toki pona." Could mean "I summon the wisdom of Toki Pona."

Please see my dictionary also:
http://rowa.giso.de/languages/toki-pona ... ionary.php

pona!
pona!
jan Lope
https://jan-lope.github.io
(Lessons and the Toki Pona Parser - A tool for spelling, grammar check and ambiguity check of Toki Pona)

On my foe list are the sockpuppets janKipo and janSilipu because of permanent spamming.
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janAetherStar
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by janAetherStar »

toki a! I'll see if I can offer some additional help. I know Lope just answered this but this is in case you need a little extra detail.

First thing's first - make sure you know for certain where your adjectives/modifiers are at. By that, I mean that you suggested "mi kama li sona" as "my approach knows". It could be a simple thing you looked over, but know that "mi kama" is not "my approach" - that would be more like "kama mi". Remember, the order of adjectives/modifiers is backwards to English in this sense. That's why we have "toki pona" (good-speak) and not "pona toki" (speech's goodness? good in a manner of speech?). The first word is your main word (e.g. cat), and the following word adds more information (e.g. black > cat black). So, "kama mi li sona" is "my approach knows", while "mi kama li sona" is "I come and know" as you'd assume there's an invisible "li" after the "mi" (note: with "li" between them, "kama" and "sona" are two completely separate verbs here, so it's not like using "kama sona" or "wile sona" or the likes).

Hope that clears that teeny bit up for you. It looks like you understand "mi kama sona e toki pona" fine :)
Just in case, here's a more detailed explanation of "mi kama e sona pi toki pona" as well:
mi (I - noun) [invisible li] kama (come, cause, bring about, etc - verb) e (now anything after this "e" is gonna be a noun, you're done with the verbs) sona (knowledge - noun) pi toki pona (gonna simplify it: "of toki pona" - modifies sona). "I cause knowledge of Toki Pona". Approaching would suggest movement, and you can't really move towards knowledge in a sense, because it's abstract and you're not really walking over to a physical thing. This is where you have to think about what something really means and if it makes any sense outside of English. Things like this do appear a little bit in the community (e.g. "jo" is used for quite a lot of things other than what you literally have in your hand) but it's recommended to try and filter them out where possible. As another example of this, if I said "it's raining cats and dogs" in Toki Pona, it'd sound strange to anyone who speaks a different native language that doesn't have that same expression (cats and dogs falling from the sky? Bah!).

Gah, I hope all that ranting helped you at least a little. Make sure that you read either Lope's lessons, or Pije's (here: http://tokipona.net/tp/janpije/learn.php) or something else if you find it so you get the structure and I hope you have fun with the language!! If you need any help whatsoever, just leave a comment on this forum. When you know TP properly, be sure to join the facebook group at facebook.com/groups/sitelen as we all love seeing new faces! :) :) :)
ale li pona. :)
sina o sona e ni.
janKipo
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by janKipo »

jan Aetherstar x jan Mali o sina poka ala poka tawa jan AetherCrux x jan Astrodonut?
kin la, one thing to point out about 'pi toki pona' is that the 'pi' is there because 'toki pona' is two words that go together to make the modifier.
I pass over in despair ever getting anyone to do 'nimi mi li ...' right (pu for starters). Suffice to say, introduce yourself with 'mi jan ...' and avoid the pakala en nasa en lon ala. 'Sole'? '
janChowlett
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by janChowlett »

o jan ale, toki!

Thanks for your help. I don't know why the adjective order hadn't stuck, it's actually pretty straightforward :oops: - although I tend to forget whether "pot plant green" is a green pot for a plant, or a pot for a green plant.

Anyway, let's have a bit more practice. I'll put what I'm trying to say in brackets, so you can tell me just how far off I am!

mute mi: (more about me? Simple fragments like that confuse me a bit, when "about" doesn't exist / gets elided)

mi tan ma Inakalan ma Juke (I am from England, in the UK. Are there accepted transliterations of those? Is the "ma ... ma ..." construct ok?)
mi jo e meli e jan lili tu. mi jo e jan lili meli e jan lili mije. (I have a wife and two children. I have a girl and a boy)
mi jo mani la mi sitelen e toki lawa pi ilo nanpa wawa. (My job ("I have money because"?) is writing computer programs)
janKipo
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by janKipo »

'poki kasi laso' "green plant pot" i.e. green pot for plants: 'laso' "green" (well, somewhere between dark green and purple, so 'jelo' - light green to orange - is probably better, but calling a plant jelo doesn't sound good cf. telo laso for tea because telo jelo is pee) modifies 'poki kasi' "plant pot" where 'kasi' modifies 'poki'.
poki pi kaso laso' "pot for a green plant'. 'laso' modifies 'kasi' and the whole 'kasi laso' modifies 'poki'.
Much better than English which writes 'green plant pot" for both, though it may pronounce tem differently.

"about" has been an ongoing problem for years. We have talking/thinking about in hand ('toki/pilin e ijo x') but not in general. Fragments are a pin, too, since they don't seem to have rules. Being a coward, I use full forms. 'mi toki mute e ijo mi.' or some such.
tp cheats a bit and uses the same proper adjective for languages, countries, people and Lord knows what all else. So, 'ma Inli, jan ' Inli, toki Inli' but pu uses 'ma Juke'. However, you need to connect the 'ma Juke' with the 'ma Inli' somehow. I think just putting in a 'lon' does it (but maybe 'pi lon').
The rest is fine, but the last says "If (or when) I have money, I write control language of computers" (don't need 'wawa' unless this is a Cray or some such). You probably want something like 'mi pali e ni:' and then as before "I do/ work at this:"
janChowlett
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by janChowlett »

mi kama sona e toki ante kepeken ni: mi sitelen toki ante e ijo Inli. mi wile sitelen toki pona e ijo Inli. mi sitelen tan seme? insa pi kulupu nimi "musi"? anu insa pi kulupa nimi "ante toki"?

mi sitelen toki pona e ijo Inli la mi ike e lawa pi jo sitelen?

... I'm not going to post what I was trying to say, but if it's completely unintelligible, let me know!
janKipo
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Re: Toki. nimi mi li Chowlett

Post by janKipo »

Well, it says (meanly literally) "I learn a different language using this: I differently language write an English thing. Why do I write? the inside of a group called "fun" or the inside of a group called "translation". I well language write an English thing only if I worsen the laws of writing possession" I think you meant roughly this: 'mi kama sona e toki ante kepeken nasin ni: mi ante toki e ijo Inli. mi sitelen tan seme? tan mi li lon insa pi musi en ante toki. mi sitelen kepeken toki pona la mi pakala e lawa toki.'
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