Usually, sentences in toki ma start with a subject (who performs the action), followed by a verb (the action itself). So for example:
mi moku → I am eating
si tanse → you are dancing
Easy! But sometimes, the meaning is a bit different as what you would expect from English:
mi lamo → I am tall
si juna → you are young
There is no verb to be in those sentences! When the context is enough, no verb to be is needed in toki ma. We will see later some cases when it kind of is needed, but don't worry about it now.
The pronouns you have just learned, mi and si, are the singular versions of the pronouns; that is, they only refer to one person. If you want to refer to several persons, you use the following instead:
mina moku → we are eating
sina tanse → you (all) are dancing
When the subject is not one of mi, si, mina, or sina, sentences have to change a little bit. Now a new particle, li, goes between the subject and the verb, like this:
on li moku → he/she is eating
ona li kanti → they are singing
tanse li musi! → dancing is fun!
You can think of this as the -s in the third person verbs in English, if you want (only that it is also used in plural!) I know that now looks useless (surely we could have said on moku and tanse musi, like before!), but later you will realize that it actually does have a purpose. For now, just remember that, if you are using the first or the second person in the subject, you don't use li; otherwise, you do!
One funny thing: toki ma has no tenses. That is, the verb do not have information about when it happens:
mi moku → I am eating or I was eating or I will be eating
That doesn't mean you can't speak about time in toki ma! Later in the course you will find ways to specify whether you mean past, present or future (and more complex constructions!), but if the context is clear, you don't need to specify.
juna, kanti, lamo, li, mi, mina, moku, musi, on, ona, si, sina, and tanse.
Before going to the next lesson, try to translate the following sentences (the answers, in the next lesson):
toki ma to English:
mi tanse.
mina juna.
si moku.
on li lamo.
English to toki ma:
We are dancing.
You are eating.
He/she is dancing.
Singing is fun.