Q: how do you say 'to do'?

In English, a lot of conversations begin with ‘What are you doing?’. ‘To do’ is a stand-in for any action:

• What are you doing?
• I’m working on the book.
• I’m buying clothes.
• I’m having fun.
• I’m resting.

But how do you say that in Toki Pona?

Let’s start by recalling some pronouns. A pronoun is a generic stand-in, usually for a noun:

The key is to remember that in Toki Pona, nouns can be verbs. When introduced by 󱤧 li or 󱥄 o, they become generic stand-ins for actions, just like ‘to do’ does:

You can make a question with 󱥙 seme-verb, and answer it with a verb, just like in the English example:

You can even specify the object, although this is not quite as frequent in conversations:

󱥁 ni-verb can be very useful when doing things together with someone:

You won’t see 󱤌 ijo-verb quite as often, but it can be nice when you’re deliberately being vague: