lesson 20: time
Let’s talk about time! You may have noticed I translate the sentences inconsistently: sometimes they talk about the present, sometimes the past, sometimes the future. This is because by default, a Toki Pona sentence carries no time information, so it could be anything! But of course, we can choose to be more specific, by using words related to time.
Let’s learn some of them:
time, moment, situation
round, repeating, yearly; circle, ball
moon, celestial body
sun, daylight; bright
new, fresh; again
side, vicinity; nearby
You already know how to talk about location in space. Location in time is very similar:
in the coming time, in the future
in the finished time, in the past
during this time
soweli lili mi o kama suli lon tenpo kama!
May my little cat grow big in the future!
ma Loma li ma suli lon tenpo weka.
Rome was a large empire long ago.
Time often serves as a sort of “scene”, a “context” for the rest of the speech. Often, we like to put such context at the beginning of the sentence, like I just did in this one! Toki Pona has a word that helps with that:
as for ..., speaking of ..., when ..., if ...
perhaps, ...
to begin with, ...
as for the book, ...
sometimes, ...
in the past, ...
the next day, ...; tomorrow, ...
sin la mi wile toki e ni:
Once again, I just want to say that...
mi pali e ni lon tenpo kama poka.
I will work on this soon.
la can also be used between two sentences, connecting them into one. The first sentence then becomes a condition ‘if or when …’, and the second is the result: ‘then …’.
The sun sets.
I sleep.
suno li pini la, mi lape.
When the sun sets, I sleep.