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Toki Pona is great as an introduction into language learning. As many English speaking people seem to be functionally monolingual they could greatly benefit fr

Toki Pona is great as an introduction into language learning. As many English speaking people seem to be functionally monolingual they could greatly benefit from learning it. It would probably be the human language equivalent of a pure Java programmer spending a weekend hacking Lisp in broadening your horizon. Even if you don't end up using Toki Pona, you will still benefit greatly from it. Due to its small size you will be able to acquire a certain "mastery" over it in just a few days which can be greatly motivating for tackling bigger languages.

GoblinSlayer 5y ago
You can learn 100 words from any natural language.
- asoneth 5y ago
  True, but there will be very few documents you can read or conversations you can participate in with only a few hundred words in a natural language. The steep learning curve of most natural languages means it takes months before I can read or say anything nontrivial.
IshKebab 5y ago
I don't see why the small vocabulary would help learn it, if more complex concepts are built from that small vocabulary. English only has 26 letters! It must be really easy!! And they're fooling themselves if they think being able to express lots of concepts with only 123 words means it's easy to communicate by only learning 123 things. No. There are still a gazillion concepts. If you want to communicate "car" to someone you still have to learn that "space for movement" means car... Or is it a bus? Ok "car" is "small-moveable-space-on-four-wheels". Hmm, bit verbose. We'll just add one more word...
fjfaase 5y ago
I do not fully agree with you. Although it is a small language, it has language constructs that are foreign to English (and some of which I do not know of being used in any natural language, although I expect that there is an obscure language that does have them, as it is my experience that many 'wierd' language constructs found in constructed languages appear in natural languages). Just having fewer words, does not make a language simpler to use. It simply means that a lot of vocabular is created by combining words. This is also seen in a language like Chinese, where more complex concepts are made by combining two or more characters into a new concept. Over time, some of these sequences are used for other things than orginal intended to the extend that native speakers no longer are aware of the origin. You also see this in English and other natural languages. English is not my native tongue and besides my native tongue, Dutch, I also understand some German, a little French, and a very little Chinese (Mandrin). I made some attempt to learn Toki Pona (about 10 ago). Although, I am not particular good at learning languages, I am more of a visual thinker, I have always had an interest in languages and have a collection of foreign language books and linguistics, see https://www.iwriteiam.nl/BookShelves.html#1.1 https://www.iwriteiam.nl/BookShelves.html#1.1
- dogsandcats 5y ago
  I am not sure if I get your point. Yes, having a small base vocabulary has trade offs and yes it is true that you will have to not just learn the meaning of every single word but also common idioms. You can be up and running very fast in Toki Pona being able to produce and understand simple sentences about broad topics. If you need to be very specific, you will have a hard time but the philosophy of Toki Pona is to strive for simplicity and to focus on your core message. You would have a hard time writing a scientific paper in Toki Pona but that is not what is was designed for anyway. What language people have trouble learning can be a bit subjective and also heavily depend on the learning material and other outside factors. Sounds like Toki Pona didn't "click" with you which is fair enough. Maybe you want to give it another try or maybe it just is not for you, there are other interesting conlangs. Toki Pona is relatively easy to learn not just for the small base vocabulary but also the relative simple phonology (Only 9 consonants and 5 vowel, always stress on initial syllable). Learning how to pronounce and write Toki Pona is extremely easy and regular. Vocabulary is probably what takes the longest time in language learning, so you get a huge head start. The grammar might be very different to English or Dutch but has many similarities to Asian languages and is not that complex. As I argued for learning Toki Pona for mind expansion, I would argue that the difference is a good thing anyway.
  - fjfaase 5y ago
    I agree with what you say. But instead of learning Toki Pona, you could also learn the 100 most common Chinese words and probably say as much as you can say in Toki Pona. If you study that list, you will see that just like in Toki Pona, many of the words have multiple meanings and can be used in multiple modes. Of course, Chinese being a tonal language and the use of characters make it a lot harder than Toki Pona, but the number of people you can talk with, is a lot larger. One of the problems that I had when learning Toki Pona, is that I did not have access to native speakers. Learning a language from a book is a lot harder than learning it through daily use. Recent studies have shown that adapt there language when they talk to their children and that that might be one of the reasons why children learn a language so seemingly without any effort. I understand that for adults that is also te best method for learning a new language, having a native speaker that is able to adjust his language use to your comprehension of the language.

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

You can learn 100 words from any natural language.

asoneth 5y ago
True, but there will be very few documents you can read or conversations you can participate in with only a few hundred words in a natural language. The steep learning curve of most natural languages means it takes months before I can read or say anything nontrivial.

IshKebab 5y ago

I don't see why the small vocabulary would help learn it, if more complex concepts are built from that small vocabulary. English only has 26 letters! It must be really easy!! And they're fooling themselves if they think being able to express lots of concepts with only 123 words means it's easy to communicate by only learning 123 things. No. There are still a gazillion concepts. If you want to communicate "car" to someone you still have to learn that "space for movement" means car... Or is it a bus? Ok "car" is "small-moveable-space-on-four-wheels". Hmm, bit verbose. We'll just add one more word...

fjfaase 5y ago

I do not fully agree with you. Although it is a small language, it has language constructs that are foreign to English (and some of which I do not know of being used in any natural language, although I expect that there is an obscure language that does have them, as it is my experience that many 'wierd' language constructs found in constructed languages appear in natural languages). Just having fewer words, does not make a language simpler to use. It simply means that a lot of vocabular is created by combining words. This is also seen in a language like Chinese, where more complex concepts are made by combining two or more characters into a new concept. Over time, some of these sequences are used for other things than orginal intended to the extend that native speakers no longer are aware of the origin. You also see this in English and other natural languages. English is not my native tongue and besides my native tongue, Dutch, I also understand some German, a little French, and a very little Chinese (Mandrin). I made some attempt to learn Toki Pona (about 10 ago). Although, I am not particular good at learning languages, I am more of a visual thinker, I have always had an interest in languages and have a collection of foreign language books and linguistics, see https://www.iwriteiam.nl/BookShelves.html#1.1 https://www.iwriteiam.nl/BookShelves.html#1.1

dogsandcats 5y ago
I am not sure if I get your point. Yes, having a small base vocabulary has trade offs and yes it is true that you will have to not just learn the meaning of every single word but also common idioms. You can be up and running very fast in Toki Pona being able to produce and understand simple sentences about broad topics. If you need to be very specific, you will have a hard time but the philosophy of Toki Pona is to strive for simplicity and to focus on your core message. You would have a hard time writing a scientific paper in Toki Pona but that is not what is was designed for anyway. What language people have trouble learning can be a bit subjective and also heavily depend on the learning material and other outside factors. Sounds like Toki Pona didn't "click" with you which is fair enough. Maybe you want to give it another try or maybe it just is not for you, there are other interesting conlangs. Toki Pona is relatively easy to learn not just for the small base vocabulary but also the relative simple phonology (Only 9 consonants and 5 vowel, always stress on initial syllable). Learning how to pronounce and write Toki Pona is extremely easy and regular. Vocabulary is probably what takes the longest time in language learning, so you get a huge head start. The grammar might be very different to English or Dutch but has many similarities to Asian languages and is not that complex. As I argued for learning Toki Pona for mind expansion, I would argue that the difference is a good thing anyway.
- fjfaase 5y ago
  I agree with what you say. But instead of learning Toki Pona, you could also learn the 100 most common Chinese words and probably say as much as you can say in Toki Pona. If you study that list, you will see that just like in Toki Pona, many of the words have multiple meanings and can be used in multiple modes. Of course, Chinese being a tonal language and the use of characters make it a lot harder than Toki Pona, but the number of people you can talk with, is a lot larger. One of the problems that I had when learning Toki Pona, is that I did not have access to native speakers. Learning a language from a book is a lot harder than learning it through daily use. Recent studies have shown that adapt there language when they talk to their children and that that might be one of the reasons why children learn a language so seemingly without any effort. I understand that for adults that is also te best method for learning a new language, having a native speaker that is able to adjust his language use to your comprehension of the language.