lipu sona

Emotional emphasis

If you want to make a sentence stronger, you can emphasize it with the particle a:

ni li seli.
This is hot.

ni li seli a!
This is really hot!

a can be put at either the beginning or the end of a sentence.

a sina pona!
Thank you!

a adds emotional weight to speech it’s emphasizing. Laughter is usually written as a a a!

Addressing people and commands

If you want to call or address a particular person, use the vocative particle o after their name:

jan Netan o!
Nathan!

If you want to tell someone to do something, use o:

o pali e leko ni.
Build these stairs.

o lape.
Go to sleep.

You can combine these two uses, to tell someone to do something, address someone, or express a wish or desire.

jan Sasi o, toki!
Hello, Sasi!

o can replace li in a sentence.

jan Maku o pona e lipu pakala.
Marcus, fix the damaged book.

sina o lape.
I want you to sleep.

o pali e ni, jan lete o.
Do this, cold people.

You can use o and a in the same sentence.

jan Ana o lape a!
Anna, go to sleep!!

kin

In Toki Pona: The Language of Good, kin is defined as a synonym for a. However, most people in the community use it slightly differently.

kin can be used for several things:

• To emphasize something without the emotional effect of a.
• As a word for “too”, “also”, “as well”.

ni li suli kin.
This is very big.

ijo ni li pona. ijo ante li pona kin.
This thing is good. The other thing is good too.

pi

The particle pi is used to regroup modifiers.

By default, in a modifier phrase, the words modify each other from left to right.

tomo telo nasa
(tomo telo) nasa
strange (water-room)
(maybe a strange restroom?)

By using pi, you can change the order of these “parentheses”.

tomo pi telo nasa
tomo (telo nasa)
(strange water) room

The term telo nasa (“strange water”) is often used to mean alcohol, so this sentence could mean a bar.

If only one word is after pi, the word pi should not be there. That’s because there’s nothing to regroup: the sentence would mean the same with or without it.

Many people confuse pi with the word “of”. It’s true that pi can often be translated as “of”, but they don’t mean the same thing. After all, if pi meant “of”, “the language of good” would be toki pi pona, not toki pona.