Where To Learn Toki Pona

So, you’ve decided to learn the minimalist language toki pona. Congratulations! You’ve made an excellent choice. Learning toki pona is a great way to improve your cognitive skills and challenge yourself linguistically.

But where does one even start?

Sadly, unlike many natural languages, there simply aren’t that many resources out there for learning toki pona. But don’t despair! There are still some great options available across all types of media.

We’ve done the hard work of scouring the internet for the best of the best, so you can get started learning toki pona as quickly and easily as possible.

7 best places to learn toki pona

1. 12 Days of toki pona by jan Misali

This is a comprehensive YouTube series that will take you from absolute beginner to proficient speaker in just 12 days.

The video course is presented in a fun, easily digestible way, with bite-sized videos that are between 2 – 4 minutes long.

With this free course, you’ll pick up all the essential grammar and vocabulary needed to start speaking toki pona immediately.

2. Toki Pona: The Language of Good by Sonja Lang

This is the book that started it all.

Written by the creator of toki pona, Sonja Lang, Toki Pona: The Language of Good is a great introduction to the language and its philosophy.

It’s a quick read at 134 pages, but it covers everything you need to know to start speaking and writing in toki pona.

The core vocabulary is covered in just 68 pages, across 18 units, each of which has useful exercises to help you practice what you’ve learned.

The rest of the book is dedicated to toki pona proverbs, quotes, sign language, hieroglyphs, and more.

3. Speak toki pona (with audio)

This is a great, free Memrise course that will help you learn the toki pona vocabulary quickly and easily.

The audio feature is particularly useful, as it allows you to hear how words are supposed to be pronounced

The course covers 225 words – all of the words from the core vocabulary list plus compound words.

4. nasin sona musi

“nasin sona musi” is an awesome and extremely useful toki pona game that teaches you sitelen pona, the toki pona hieroglyphic writing system.

It’s a free online game that you can play in your browser, without signing up; your progress will be saved using cookies.

You’ll learn all of the official toki pona hieroglyphs that are available in pu (the official toki pona book).

5. Wikipesija

Wikipesija is the toki pona version of Wikipedia and is written entirely in toki pona.

It’s an excellent resource for intermediate and advanced learners, as it allows you to see how toki pona can be used to express complex ideas.

You’ll be able to learn about a wide variety of topics, from history and science to pop culture, all in toki pona.

6. Advanced Toki Pona

This is another free Memrise course, but this one is a little more comprehensive.

The course takes things a bit further than the previous Memrise course we mentioned and includes not only compound terms but popular toki pona-translated proverbs.

There’s no audio, but seeing as toki pona isn’t a very difficult language to pronounce, we don’t think that will be too much of a problem.

7. lipu pi jan Ne

This website is a great resource for everything toki pona, including the official dictionary, useful guides on how to use and pronounce the language, a transliterator tool, lists of the toki pona hieroglyphics, and more.

You’ll also find free public domain stories and articles written in toki pona, which are great for reading practice.

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Wrapping things up

Don’t say we never give you anything!

This list is not, by any means, exhaustive, but it does represent some of the best resources out there for learning toki pona.

And what’s more, most of the above resources are free, so there’s no excuse not to start learning today. And who knows, maybe one day you’ll be able to add “toki pona speaker” to your list of skills and accomplishments. 🙂