Stories, audio, and videos can all help you learn Toki Pona when you can follow what they mean. That is the idea behind comprehensible input: learning from Toki Pona you can mostly understand. Learners on r/tokipona say listening is the hardest skill to build, and one reply explains why: there is far less spoken Toki Pona to hear than German or Spanish.
These apps and free sites give you Toki Pona at your level. For courses, speaking practice, and tutors, see our Toki Pona app comparison.
Custom Lessons Made for You
Bubblegum
Learn Toki Pona with a path made just for you. Start with your level, what you like, and why you want to learn. Your path grows as you learn, with new lessons that fit you. Bubblegum also has news and stories, so you can read and listen to a mix of Toki Pona about music, food, family, or everyday life.
Poppy, your AI tutor, writes each lesson for your level and goals. If a sentence is hard to follow, just ask her to explain the words or the grammar.
The trade-off is that Bubblegum can't help you read Toki Pona you found yourself, such as a magazine article or a story from the community. For that, keep a dictionary such as Linku open while you read.
- Read and listen to lessons, news, and stories about things you like.
- New lessons fit your level, interests, and goals.
- Regenerative Review™ brings saved words back in new lessons, so you review them by reading instead of using flashcards.
- Ask Poppy for help as you read.
- Lessons and audio are made with AI, so pair them with stories and videos from Toki Pona speakers.
- You cannot bring in your own books, articles, or videos.
- A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so you can ask Poppy for a free one, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn.
- Regenerative Review™
Mobile
Read and Listen to Stories for Learners
Duostories
Duostories is a volunteer project that brings Duolingo's short stories to more languages, under a license from Duolingo. Its Toki Pona stories are about everyday moments, from a date to a trip to the station. It suits learners who know the basic words and want short stories with questions that check what they understood.
- 52 free Toki Pona stories with audio.
- Answer short questions as you read each story.
- A listening mode plays a story and skips the questions.
MobileWeb
Watch Videos Made for Learners
When a learner asked r/tokipona for comprehensible input in 2025, every reply that named a resource pointed to o pilin e toki pona by jan Telakoman. It is a free course of 30 story videos, about 20 minutes each, meant to be watched over one month. Each story is told only in Toki Pona, with pictures and gestures, so you can start before you know any words. It uses only the 120 words of the official 2014 book, so you will need a few more words for Toki Pona as people use it today. His shorter toki lili lon ma kasi series has 12 vlogs from walks in nature, with emoji on screen to help you follow.
Once you know the basics, jan Polijan posts vlogs in clear, unhurried Toki Pona about nature walks and trips to the library. His videos have subtitles in Toki Pona, English, and French. For more, tokipona.net keeps YouTube playlists of new vlogs, stories, and talks in Toki Pona.
Free Stories, Magazines, Podcasts, and News
Beginner Texts in Toki Pona by jan Lakuse has 67 free texts at three lengths, from one-page stories of as few as 40 words to long texts with pages of more than 500 words. You can show the English for a whole story or only for the line you are stuck on. The Fingtam Toki Pona Stories are three books that each tell one story three times, from beginner to upper intermediate. The PDFs are free, and jan Po has recorded the books aloud. StoryWeaver has 19 free picture books in Toki Pona.
When you can read a little more, lipu tenpo is a magazine written only in Toki Pona, with articles, comics, and art. It has put out more than 35 issues since 2021, and you can read every one online. lipu Lapo is a library of more than 1,700 poems, song lyrics, articles, and stories in Toki Pona. Buy printed books with care: tokipona.net warns that many Toki Pona books on Amazon come from people who don't know the language.
For listening, kalama sin is a podcast in Toki Pona where different speakers talk about trips, books, and other topics. Most episodes have transcripts or YouTube subtitles. One learner on Reddit warns that it is a big step up from videos made for learners, so save it for after the basics. toki pona today turns some episodes into listening lessons.
For news, jan Alonola posts sona sin, short videos about world news in Toki Pona. The Toki Pona Wikipedia opened in November 2025 and has more than 4,000 articles.
Learn Toki Pona in Your Language
These counts cover menu-language choices, including script variants. Duostories’ count and full list come from its iPhone listing. Word meanings, lesson explanations, and other platforms may differ.
| App | Supported Display Languages | Full List |
|---|---|---|
| Bubblegum | 74 | Full list
|
| Duostories | 1 | Full list |
Other Apps We Looked At (8)
- ClozemasterThousands of Toki Pona sentences with one word missing, ordered by how common the missing word is. It suits learners who know the basic words.
- TatoebaA free, open collection of more than 75,000 Toki Pona sentences that people have added, many with translations.
- suno pi toki ponaToki Pona Day, a yearly 24-hour live stream with talks, games, and music. Past streams are on YouTube.
- Toki Pona VRTalks and presentations in Toki Pona, recorded at the group's meetups in VRChat.
- jan Kekan SanThe teacher behind the Learn Toki Pona! lessons also posts videos in Toki Pona, such as game playthroughs.
- o toki ponaA YouTube channel with a Toki Pona course taught with pictures, started in 2025, and short word videos in several languages. It is new and growing.
- toki suliLearn one Toki Pona word at a time, with example sentences, grammar notes, and 10 short stories to read. It is new and growing.
- kama sonaA Toki Pona dictionary with flashcards, short grammar lessons, and 100 real sentences to translate, with word-by-word help. It is new and growing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many words do I need to follow Toki Pona?
Toki Pona's official site says the language has only 120 to 140 basic words. Linku can show only the core and common words, so you can learn those first and look up the rest as you read.
Should I read Toki Pona in sitelen pona?
You can start without it. Sitelen pona gives each word its own symbol, and it is the second most popular way to write Toki Pona, after the Latin alphabet. Duostories has a sitelen pona version of the same stories, and Beginner Texts lets you read in either one, or both at once.
What do Toki Pona speakers watch and listen to?
Songs come first. In the 2024 Toki Pona census, 71% of the people who answered had listened to Toki Pona songs, and about half had watched videos or streams. Toki Pona Radio plays songs from the community in your browser, on YouTube, and on Twitch.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so you can ask Poppy for a free one, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
Sources
- sona pona: What's next? (listening and reading after a course)
- r/tokipona: Toki Pona seems orders of magnitude easier to speak than listen to (2026)
- r/tokipona: Toki Pona Comprehensible Input? (2025)
- tokipona.net: Resources and Links
- Toki Pona (official site)
- Comprehensible Input Wiki: Toki Pona
- r/tokipona: o pilin e toki pona, learn Toki Pona through comprehensible input (the creator's post, 2023)
- sona pona: o pilin e toki pona
- sona pona: Recommended learning resources
- jan Telakoman: o pilin e toki pona (YouTube playlist)
- jan Telakoman: toki lili lon ma kasi (YouTube playlist)
- jan Polijan on YouTube
- jan Lakuse: Beginner Texts in Toki Pona
- Fingtam: Toki Pona Stories
- StoryWeaver: Toki Pona picture books
- lipu tenpo: all issues
- lipu Lapo: the Toki Pona library
- kalama sin on RedCircle
- toki pona today: listening lessons
- Aronora (jan Alonola) on YouTube: sona sin
- sona pona: Wikipedia (the Toki Pona edition opened in November 2025)
- Toki Pona Wikipedia: statistics
- Duostories: sitelen pona stories
- Results of the August 2024 Toki Pona census
- kute.pona.la: Toki Pona radio
- Bubblegum
- Duostories
Checked on October 8, 2026 against each app's own pages.
