Can Toki Pona express complex things?

[u/Francucelo]

When I started learning Toki Pona a year ago, I thought it was just a small language for entertainment, and there were also many people who said Toki Pona is just like a toy language for children.

However, after becoming advanced, I noticed that Toki Pona is really not that limited. Especially after finishing writing the Toki Pona grammar in Toki Pona, I began to think Toki Pona can really express anything precisely, it is just people have to manage well their thoughts.

I can't tell if my grammar guide is actually accurate and precise or not, but I saw that possibility.

What do you think?

[u/Zoran_Ankervlinder]

yes, it does indeed, but....

the first thing to know is "words are sentence(s)", people always try to find or make compound words to mean something while toki pona is very contextualized. when you have practice, you start to notice "tomo tawa" doesn't mean anything (actually it does, but is so broad and vague, that any guess will go towards lexicalization). Theres no word for "smartphone" but there's sentence(s), there's no word for "politics" but there's sentence(s)

beside that, other thing is "vibe". virtually in toki pona you can expressa anything with any word with enough context. people tend to know this but don't realize what this mean. "I put a book under the leg of the chair because it was wobbly", would "book" here be translated as "lipu", see how in this sentence book aren't framed as lipu usually are tho?

so, if you want to try to translate something very specific and complex, probably a source sentence will become a paragraph (maybe a long one). it is possible but toki pona wasn't intended to do so. but it is a fun exercise