lesson 8: prepositions
Prepositions
Now that we know some countries, let’s talk about travel! But how do you say “go to” and “come from”? For that, we will need some verbs and prepositions:
to remove, to go away; absent, away
to give, to put
to come, to arrive
to stay, to remain, to protect
to, towards
at, on, in
from, because of
A preposition is a word that goes before another word. It tells you how it relates to the sentence. A preposition + the word it attaches is called a prepositional phrase:
towards the animal
on land, in the country
from the house
In Toki Pona, prepositional phrases can be used one of two ways. Firstly we can attach them at the end of a sentence. We can use this to mention location and direction of an action:
mi pana e waso tawa kasi.
I put a bird onto a tree.
waso li awen lon kasi.
The bird remains on a tree.
sina weka e waso tan kasi.
You remove the bird from the tree.
Secondly, what if we want to talk about location or direction… without anything else happening? Fortunately, we can do that too. Prepositional phrases can come directly after li, and act as the verb all by themselves. When prepositions act as verbs, they mean: tawa ‘to go to’, lon ‘to be at’, tan ‘to come from’:
jan Ema li tawa ma Nijon.
Emma goes to Japan.
jan Nina li lon ma Lusi.
Nina is in Russia.
jan Mili li tan ma Kanse.
Millie is from France.
Let’s practice with these sentences:
mi tawa ma kasi.
I go to the plant land.
(Could be a forest, a grassy field, somewhere lush.)
sona li weka tan mi.
Knowledge went away from me.
(I forgot.)
soweli suwi li pona tawa mi.
Cute animals are good to me.
(I like cute animals.)
jan Nowa li toki tawa jan Ema.
Noah speaks to Emma.
jan li toki Tosi lon ma Tosi.
People speak German in Germany.