kama sona (learning)

kama sona is my Toki Pona lesson series. Each lesson is the chapter of a book! They are long and detailed. Each one has important info to absorb. Be patient, and learn well!

lipu sona (Lesson pages)

• Getting Started — Whole Playlist
• You and I — On YouTube
• Actions with li — On YouTube
• Objects with e — On YouTube
• Modifiers and pi — On YouTube
• Pre-predicates, ala — On YouTube
• Prepositions — On YouTube
• Instructions with o — On YouTube
• Interjections and a — On YouTube
• Context and la
• [WIP] Questions, answers, seme
• And Another Thing… — On YouTube
• [WIP] Finale

pana sona pi jan ante (Others’ Teaching)

• o pilin e toki pona, by jan Telakoman (playlist)
• lipu sona, by soweli Tesa (webpage)
• lipu sona pona, by jan Lentan (webpage)
• Toki Pona: The Language of Good, by jan Sonja (ebook or paperback)

namako (extra)

namako is a collection of lessons that work with kama sona, giving more examples, better understanding, and new ways of thinking about Toki Pona. Importantly, all of these lessons focus on how Toki Pona is used commonly, teaching a nasin that most others will understand.

• Specific Words
  • Tricks with la
  • pali doesn’t (usually) mean “do”
  • taso and kin: Why do taso and kin act differently around la?
• Prepositions
  • kepeken vs kepeken e
• Themed Lessons
  • Instead of Phatic Phrases
  • Conlang Critic opener

nasin (methods)

nasin is a collection of lessons focusing on specific uses of Toki Pona which you could encounter while speaking. These are not taught as a way to speak Toki Pona, but as a way of exploring what is possible and what others do. You may choose to use any/all of these nasin, or none of them, but all of them are beneficial to your understanding of Toki Pona.

• nasin sin (new methods)
  • Transitive Prepositional Phrases: mi lon poki e ilo
• nimi weka (removed words)
  • pin’t: not using pi
  • gendern’t: not using meli or mije or even tonsi

ijo ante (other things)

• ilo (Resources)
  • lipu Linku, a dictionary by kala Asi
  • nasin toki, a grammar by kili Juli
  • lipu lili pona, a cheat sheet by jan Ne
  • nasin sona musi, by James Moulang
• kulupu (Communities)
  • ma pona pi toki pona, on Discord
  • kama sona, on Discord
  • ma toki pona, on Discord (toki pona taso!)
  • Ma Toki Pona VR, for VRChat Events
  • toki pona - jan pi wile pona taso, on Telegram
  • toki pona, on Facebook
  • toki.social, a Mastodon instance
• pali sona (Practice)
  • lipu tenpo — lipu kule — lipu monsuta (zines)
  • kalama sin — seme li sin (podcasts)
  • jan Tepo — jan Lakuse (skits, vlogs)
  • jan Telakoman — jan Astrodonunt (skits, vlogs)
  • jan Usawi (music!)
  • lipu Wikipesija (wiki)

tan seme (why)

Many people have asked, why did start my lessons series? Why did I go to all this effort when many others had made good lessons before?

There were many gaps in the existing lessons that I wanted to cover. Most other lessons do not have context-driven examples, with a situation a statement would exist in. Most other lessons introduced sitelen pona, but went no further. I couldn’t find a single other lesson series that covered interjections beyond “a” and “mu.” And I wanted to help with some of the terminology problems floating around the community!

This, and many more things, drove me to create my own series. But most of the credit belongs to the Toki Pona VR community, where I found the most fascinating and excited people to practice with and to teach! They drove me to begin writing down what I knew, to help more discover the language, and to grow the community.