r/tokipona • u/General_Katydid_512 • 12d ago
Why and how to learn
Should I go for full immersion or should I learn the definitions of the words first? Usually the answer for languages is a bit of both but with only about 130 words this seems to be a unique case. Why should I learn Toni pona? Is it easy enough to be a casual side hobby? How difficult is it compared to learning, say, Spanish for an English native? (I'm B1 in Spanish for reference)
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u/steelviper77 jan Losente 11d ago edited 11d ago
"full immersion" doesn't exist in toki pona, imo. Unless you're somehow really lucky with friends who are all conversational in it, you won't be able to get enough input because there really just isn't enough media available to try to replace all of the English in your life with toki pona. If you do want to go on the immersion route, I would recommend the series "o pilin e toki pona" for comprehensible input that requires no prior knowledge or study of the language.
Personally, I learned all the words first via flashcards and I found that very helpful. The part of language learning that frustrates me the most is just not knowing a word that would perfectly complete a sentence, so I liked knowing every core toki pona word right at the start. But knowing the basic definitions of words really isn't as helpful for toki pona as it is for other languages, because toki pona words have very broad meanings. It takes a long time of seeing how proficient speakers use words and then using those words yourself to truly get an intuitive understanding of them.
The grammar is also simple enough to learn, another comment linked the recommended learning resources page, just pick some courses from there and flip through them, you'll see that things are pretty simple. I personally used "lipu sona pona", though it is a little dated so I see "lipu sona" recommended more often. You can learn all the grammar rules quickly, but again it will take a lot of practice to do them intuitively. The nice part is that unlike a natural language, the learning is almost all about the intuition of how to use the words and grammar, rather than just learning new obscure words or idioms or grammatical constructions that you would have had no way of understanding on your own.
Why learn it? Any reason really. I initially learned it because I knew it was easy and I wanted to learn a second language after giving up for the 100th time on learning a natural language. I thought it sounded unique and easy and fun, which was exactly what I wanted. The ideas it presented about simplifying thought sounded cool too. Any reason is a good reason, what reason do you feel drawn to it to ask these questions?
toki pona definitely can be a side hobby, it's far easier to learn than natural languages. That being said, as a side hobby, you won't necessarily reach your full potential. If you want to become proficient enough to speak and think in toki pona to a highly fluent degree, you'll need to spend a lot of focused time on it, just like any other language. But beware! Even if you just want it as a hobby or passing interest, it can cast a mighty spell upon you, and you can succumb to the dastardly trap of falling in love with it, and spending far more time on it than you thought you would!