Tongan: Learn to Speak the Language of Friendly Islands

Lea faka-Tonga is the Polynesian language of Tonga, spoken by around 200,000 people. It has a reputation for being hard to start, mostly because of two little marks - the ʻokina (a catch in the throat) and the toloi (a bar over a long vowel) - that no one ever explains simply. So this course explains them first, on page one, and never leaves you guessing again.From there you move one short unit at a time. Each of the twenty-four units opens with a dialogue, gives you a handful of new words, takes apart a single piece of grammar with clear tables and worked examples, and ends with a culture note, some exercises and a quick self-test. Nothing is rushed, and nothing is assumed - not a word of Tongan, not a page of linguistics.Along the way you meet what actually makes Tongan work: the small words ʻe and ʻa that mark who does what, and the four tense words that stand in for every irregular verb English ever made you memorise. Every sentence is printed in Tongan and English, with a word-for-word gloss, so the inside of the language is always visible. A full answer key, a glossary and an English-Tongan index finish the book.Open it, say Mālō e lelei, and you have already begun.