toki! I'm new in toki pona and I would like to know how we can translate "when".
For example: When you wake up in the morning.
Thanks in advance!
"When" in Toki Pona
Re: "When" in Toki Pona
"tenpo seme" - literally "time what"
Re: "When" in Toki Pona
As always, it depends on context. If yiu are asking a question that wants a time specificiation, then ‘tenpo seme?’ is just ritgh, either before or after the specification: “When will you come?” ‘tenpo seme la sina kama?’ or ‘sina kama lon tenpo seme?’. But if it is to cooordinate two events, “when” behaves like “if” and gives rise to a ‘la’ phrase: “I will come whe'n the sun rises” ‘suno li open sewi la mi kama’. Finally (well, there are lots of other cases, but these are the main ones) for a particular time specified by what happened then, you use ‘tenpo’ and a relative clause: I know when the movie starts”: ‘mi sona e tenpo ni: sitelen tawa li open lon ona’.
Re: "When" in Toki Pona
And what would it be if we were to translate that part of a poem: "When you wake up in the morning or stay up nights on end, ..."
Re: "When" in Toki Pona
Not knowing how the sentence goes on, I can only guess that this is coordinating and so a ‘la’ phrase.