LESSON 2: honey come here, he’s about to say his first words!

symbol word meaning in English etymology
mi mi I, me, my, we [any 1st-person pronoun] Esperanto: mi I
sina sina you, your, yours, y’all y’all’s [any 2nd-person pronoun] Finnish: sinä you, y’all
ona ona he, she, it, they, fae, [any 3rd-person pronoun] Serbo-Croatian: она (ona) she, they
toki toki speech, language, communication; hello Tok Pisin: tok information, message; rumo(u)r; word, language
pona pona good, simple, fix Esperanto: bona good
jan jan person, human Cantonese: 人 jan⁴ man, human
ike ike bad, complex Finnish: ilkeä
moku moku eat, food Japanese: もぐもぐ mogumogu
li li separates the subject from the predicate Esperanto: li
ni ni this, that Cantonese: 呢 ni¹

GRAMMAR LESSON - basic sentences and interjections

you only need to know two things:

  1. modifier words go after the words they modify (as in jan pona jan+pona rather than pona jan pona-jan).
  2. if the subject is just mi mi or just sina sina, then li li is omitted.
  3. there are three interjections so far: toki! toki! means “hello!” or “hi!”, pona! pona! means “good!” or “thank you!”, and [WORD] pona!, e.g. moku pona! moku-pona! means “enjoy [WORD]ing!” or “enjoy your [WORD]!” e.g. moku pona! means “bon appétit!”

examples:

now it’s your turn!

It is bad. =

please go back     next lesson!