beside, nearby, with. (By itself, poka means side.)
sewi
high, above, roof, top, sky
anpa, insa, monsi, poka, and sewi
Although you may be tempted to use these words as prepositions, they're actually nouns. You have to use another preposition (usually lon or tawa) along with them. Some examples: ona li lon sewi mi.He is in my above, i.e. he is above me. pipi li lon anpa mi.The bug is underneath me. moku li lon insa mi.Food is inside me. len li lon monsi mi.Clothes are behind me. mi moku lon poka sina.I'm eating beside [or with] you. sina lukin e ona lon poka mi.You'll see him next to me.
These words are nouns, and mi is a possessive pronoun meaning my. So sewi mi means something like my above or the area that is above me. To reiterate: Since these words are merely nouns, you must use them with a preposition (or a verb that doubles as a preposition). In all of the above examples, lon serves as the preposition. Don't forget to include a preposition!
For now, you'll only be able to use these words for very simple prepositional phrases, basically just ones that end with only one word. (In other words, you haven't yet learned how to translate a sentence like, "I am above the big house." For now you can only say, "I am above the house," or "I'm above it.") To make more complex phrases, you'll need to learn about the word pi, which will be taught in lesson 11.
Since these words aren't prepositions, they're free for other uses, just like any other noun/adjective/verb: monsi can mean the back side of the body or the buttocks. anpa can be a verb: mi anpa e jan utala.I defeated the warrior.
sama
sama can be used for several different parts of speech, but it's easy to understand. Let's look at a few examples: jan ni li sama mi.That person is like me. ona li lukin sama pipi.He looks like a bug.
By the way, jan sama is the generally accepted phrase for sibling.
tan
It's too early to learn everything you need to know about tan, but since it's the last Toki Pona preposition, let's at least learn a little about it now. Depending how it's used in a sentence, tan basically means either because of or from. (Rarely, you may see tan as a noun, but we'll discuss that in the next lesson.)
Let's learn from some examples: mi moku tan ni: mi wile moku This literally says, I eat because-of this: I want to-eat. A more colloquial translation would be, I eat because I'm hungry. mi tan ma ike.I'm from a bad country.
Practice
Try translating these sentences from English to Toki Pona.
My friend is beside me.
The sun is above me.
The land is beneath me.
Bad things are behind me.
I'm okay because I'm alive.
lon as a verb by itself means to exist, to be real, etc. It was mentioned like that when you learned the word in lesson 6, although we didn't directly cover it within the lesson.
I look at the land beside the house.
People look like ants.
And now try changing these sentences from Toki Pona into English:
