I plan on going abroad in the coming year & want to know enough of the local language to ask basic things. Does anyone know something like 100 or 250 words that I could memorize to get across basic ideas & questions? I don’t care about being grammatical correct just enough to cave man speak during my time there.
Toki Pona doesn’t work like that, each word has multiple meanings, it’s made to be generic. For example Tawa means move, go, away, etc and Mi means me, we, us, mine, ours, etc. But Mi Tawa which literary means I go is used to mean Bye. Or Akesi which means disgusting animal or lizard and Linja which means long, flexible, cord, etc. So a Snake is an Akesi Linja.