kalama musi tan jan musi Pitalesi kepeken toki pona

[Egezort]

tenpo tawa la mi wile kalama e kalama musi She Said tan jan musi Beatles. mi ante mute e ni tan mi wile sama pi nanpa kalama. sina pona ala pona? sina wile ala wile ante e ni? (mi pakala tan toki pakala mi)

(ijo suli li tenpo suli. ni li tenpo tu wan taso ni li tenpo tu ala)

meli li toki ni:
mi sona moli
mi sona pilin pakala
meli li pali e mi pilin kama ala

mi toki ni:
jan seme pana ijo nasa insa lawa sina
sina pali e mi pilin kama ala

meli li toki ni: sina sona ala
mi toki ni: ala kin
tenpo mi lili
la ali li pona
la ali li pona

mi toki ni: sona sina li ike
mi sona ni: mi ken tawa
meli li pali e mi pilin kama ala

Original Lyrics:

She said, "I know what it's like to be dead.
I know what it is to be sad."
And she's making me feel like I've never been born

I said, "Who put all those things in your head?
Things that make me feel that I'm mad.
And you're making me feel like I've never been born."

She said, "You don't understand what I said."
I said, "No, no, no, you're wrong.
When I was a boy everything was right,
Everything was right."

I said, "Even though you know what you know,
I know that I'm ready to leave
'Cause you're making me feel like I've never been born."

She said, "You don't understand what I said."
I said, "No, no, no, you're wrong.
When I was a boy everything was right,
Everything was right."

I said, "Even though you know what you know,
I know that I'm ready to leave
'Cause you're making me feel like I've never been born."

She said, "I know what it's like to be dead.
I know what it is to be sad.
I know what it's like to be dead..."

[janTepanNetaPelin]

toki!

"meli" works ("a/the woman"), but usually one would say "ona" or, if necessary, "ona meli".

One would usually say "toki e ni" ("said that"), but it could be argued that "toki ni" ("said so") also works.

"sona moli" means "to know how to be dead", but I understand the text as "I have experienced death myself", which is why I would use "mi sona e moli".

One could argue for "pilin pakala", but "pilin ike" should be specific enough.

"meli li pali e mi pilin kama ala" doesn't work. You should use a subordinate clause "and she's making me feel that I've never been born": "ona li pana e pilin ni tawa mi: mi kama ala lon", or "ona li tawa mi e ni: mi kama ala lon" (which is unusual, but I think it's grammatically correct). "kama ala lon" can be reduced to "kama ala", but I would rather consider extending it to "kama ala lon tan mama". Your version would need some "pi": "ona li pali e mi pi pilin pi kama ala".

"pana" → "li pana"
"ijo nasa" → "e ijo nasa"
"insa" → "tawa insa"
"lawa sina" → "pi lawa sina"

So, your version needs particles and prepositions: "jan seme li pana e ijo nasa tawa insa pi lawa sina?" This would work. I'd shorten it a bit: "jan seme li nasa e lawa sina?"

The line "things that make me feel that I'm mad" is missing. I don't know if "mad" means "crazy" or "upset", though.

That's all for now. I hope it helped so far!

mi tawa.


ona meli li toki e ni:
mi sona e moli
mi sona e pilin ike
ona li tawa mi e ni: mi kama ala lon tan mama.

mi toki e ni:
jan seme li nasa e lawa sina
...
sina tawa mi e ni: mi kama ala lon tan mama.

[janKipo]

I don’t doe poetry, especially scansion, so these comments may affect that adversely.

tenpo tawa la mi wile kalama e kalama musi She Said PI tan jan musi Beatles. mi ante mute e ni tan NI: mi wile sama E nanpa kalama. sina pona ala pona? sina wile ala wile ante e ni? (mi pakala tan toki pakala mi)

(ijo suli li tenpo suli. ni li tenpo tu wan taso ni li tenpo tu ala)

meli li toki ni:
mi sona moli
mi sona pilin pakala

The woman says “I know how to be dead, I know how to feel ruined.” Not quite “what it’s like to be” but I can’t think of a good way to do it.

meli li pali e mi pilin kama ala
Wrong “make”, want “cause” here so probably ‘meli li kama e ni: mi sama pilin ni: mi kama ala lon’ (No good way to collapse this.)

mi toki ni:
“jan seme LI pana E ijo nasa TAWA/LON insa PI lawa sina
sina pali e mi pilin kama ala” [see above]

meli li toki ni: “sina sona ala [e toki mi]”
mi toki E ni: “ala kin
tenpo PI mi lili [or just ‘mi lili’
la ali li pona
la ali li pona”

mi toki ni: sona sina li ike [‘sina sona e sona sina’
mi sona ni: mi ken tawa [prob ‘wile’]
meli li pali e mi pilin kama ala [above]

Nice (and surprising) to see I am not that different from Tepan.

[Egezort]

Thank you to both of you, I guess trying to fit in the syllable count is virtually impossible, though I have a few questions.
Doesn't insa work as a preposition making lon or tawa redundant? Is it used otherwise only to specifically say that it is inside something?
When do I have to use pi exactly? I would have thought that using it before tan would be wrong.
I had seen somewhere that if the subject isn't directly affected by the action that it wouldn't have "e". I assumed that the same would go for thinking about something since that something isn't really changed by you thinking it.
I really appreciate you taking your time to correct it. mi tawa

[janKipo]

‘insa’ is a noun and so comes into a prepositional phrase as the object of the preposition. The English object of the English preposition “inside” then appears as a modifier of that noun. So “inside the house” is ‘lon insa tomo’ and so on for other spatial/bodypart terms. Only ‘poka’ has become a preposition in its own right and that with a different meaning from ‘lon poka x’.

‘pi’ introduces a unitary modifier of more than one word (but not numbers). So a prepositional phrases modifying a noun or a verb needs ‘pi' (since it is always at least two words long).

The rule about ‘e’ and Direct Objects (not subjects) is simply that every DO requires ‘e’ and a DO is simply the first noun that goes with a transitive verb after the subject. The action of the verb doesn’t have to affect the object at all: seeing a thing doesn’t affect the thing seen at all but ‘lukin’ is tranitive, so the thing gets mentioned as the DO; ‘lukin e ijo’. The line of chat you cite seems to have turned up first as part of trying to explain why ’tawa’ (for example) doesn’t introduce the place gone to by ‘e’, since (it is said) my going there does affect it (but doesn’t it?). The real reason is simply that ‘tawa’ is not a transitive verb (in the cases referred to) but a preposition, which doesn’t use ‘e’. As for thinking, ‘pilin’ is a transitive verb, so it has a DO which takes ‘e’. (Whether thinking about something changes it is a messy question, but not one we need to get into, since it has nothing to do with the issue.)