What's next?

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This is a list of learning resources for how to advance in Toki Pona after going through the courses.

Practicing the language in multiple ways is the best way of solidifying language skills. After going through one course, it can be beneficial to check out at least one more course - especially since different courses have different approaches and were written at different times. But the best way to familiarise yourself with a language is by having conversations with speakers. To that extent, try to find in-person meetings, events or groups and voice chats.

But because there are multiple reasons why this might not be available, easy or enough, there are multiple ways to supplement your learning.

Listening[edit | edit source]

Most beginner resources exist entirely as text. Understanding spoken Toki Pona (and producing it by imitation) is a related, but separate skill. As a measure of advanced skills, consider being able to follow fast-spoken Toki Pona. This may include episodes from the toki kala podcast or many episodes from kalama sin, when jan Lakuse and jan Tepo are participating.

To get you there, the following resources may train your ears:

  • o pilin e toki pona is a standalone learning course by jan Telakoman that is exclusively in Toki Pona. It is a very big collection of spoken and illustrated stories designed to provide the viewer with enough context to be able to follow the story even when not knowing Toki Pona. If you already have a base knowledge, you should be able to follow the content without even the illustrations, and putting the videos in the background to pay attention to while doing menial work can be one strategy to further your understanding.
  • toki lili lon ma kasi is from the same creator as o pilin e toki pona and a kind of precursor. These vlog-style short videos illustrate what is said with emoji to add context.
  • jan Polijan's YouTube channel is adjacent to the style that jan Telakoman has in the vlog-style videos. There are new videos pretty regularly that are very accessible to people who aren't quite as proficient as they would like.
  • Duostories (and the sitelen pona counterpart) has several short stories from Duolingo, voiced with generated voices, which have small listening and reading comprehension quizzes
  • If you're into presentations, the VRChat group's YouTube channel has got you covered with real talks and fake, improv talks
  • Other than kalama sin, there are many podcasts. While any content may be more or less difficult depending on the listener, the speed at which Toki Pona is spoken may matter a bit more to listeners who are still getting used to a steady flow of Toki Pona:
Under construction This article needs work:

list examples of kalama sin episodes that are reasonably or even slow paced

If you know about this topic, you can help us by editing it. (See all)
Under construction This article needs work:

having a playlist of toki pona game play videos would be useful here

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Creating[edit | edit source]

Writing, translating, singing, drawing, any creative act in Toki Pona can help you immerse in the language. As you create, try to find people who can give you feedback, be that a simple reaction or a full, in-depth proofreading session. Even at any level of fluency, creators will always benefit from having feedback! If this is one of your first times making things in Toki Pona, consider limiting yourself in the following ways:

  • Pick a small-scale project. For most people creating, and most people interacting with the creation, it will feel better to deal with a complete work, and as you scale up to larger works later on, small projects can give you a sense of how much time and effort goes into something in the act of creation, and also what steps are good to have or are better to avoid when preparing and for editing in the final steps or after the fact
  • Work on it in small, manageable bits. This will make it better for feedback and the people providing feedback. Dumping a wall of text on them will make it more difficult to go through. Also, this will reduce the amount of repeating subsequent errors, misconceptions or tedious reformatting

However, there is no real limit to what you can or can't work on. Do something that is meaningful to you, maybe something that is fun. If you feel completely lost, the following may give you a taste of what is possible:

  • telo misikeke is an online grammar-checker that can help reveal obvious grammar errors. It is not a replacement for actual feedback, but can be a good helpful first step in improving your work.
  • StoryWeaver has a massive collection of free picture books that can be translated into any language, including Toki Pona. They are already small in scope and are already segmented into pages, making it very usable for feedback sessions. Other works can be found on Bloom, but adding Toki Pona translations there doesn't seem to be an option currently
Under construction This article needs work:

would benefit from having more examples of things to work on

If you know about this topic, you can help us by editing it. (See all)
  • If you haven't already, learning sitelen pona either alongside the vocabulary or after the fact is something that many learners have reported on enhancing their learning experience - in addition, there is an increasing amount of content in Sitelen Pona, so knowing the writing system can be beneficial in multiple ways

Deeper-level learning resources[edit | edit source]

There are many resources that are made for learners of all levels, but might be especially useful to people who just need a couple of final steps to complete the last bits of knowledge.

  • Cheat sheets can be useful reminders of grammar rules or vocabulary that just happen to escape you
  • Similarly, various flashcard systems can help you achieve completeness of a set of vocabulary
  • lipamanka's semantic dictionary is very helpful to complete understanding of each individual word, it describes what the words mean instead of just giving examples or "definitions" that most dictionaries have. But it does not cover grammatical words
  • nasin toki pona covers grammatical words and mostly all, if not all, grammatical features in detail
  • This video by jan Lakuse explains grammatical structures
  • While jan Kekan San has an actual course in video form on his YouTube channel, there is additional material that is useful for expressing yourself and other ways of how Toki Pona can work in practice.

Reading[edit | edit source]

We have collected a lot of works in Category:Literature, Books and Literature in sitelen pona that can fill days, weeks, months, maybe years of engaging with all sorts of literature. There is much to explore.

Noticeably creative texts get created for the yearly literature contest.

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