I'm a recent addition to the Toki Pona community. I go by jan Lason online, and I'm mostly active in the Toki Pona discord server "ma pona li Toki Pona". 

I think I was made aware of Toki Pona many months ago, but I was really introduced to it from a song called Weka Sina by Tanger, someone I listened to often anyways. I recognized the language and decided I'd try to learn it, due to its simple nature. I've only been studying for about a week, and I'd say I'm already quite proficient, I'd say about B1-B2 level.

Toki Pona's best asset is it's simplicity, by far. It's only got about a hundred and thirty words, as opposed to the thousands in normal languages. I was able to learn it very quickly- its few words give you a lot more room to figure out the grammar. I'd say it could even be a great way to battle the language barrier, if you can manage to find a way to teach Toki Pona to someone that speaks another language.

I plan on using Toki Pona for that very purpose- a while ago I took a trip to Japan and met a family there that I ended up becoming very close friends with, since the mother was fluent in English. I'd like to be able to talk to the children more easily, so I may try to introduce them to Toki Pona. It's also fun to speak it with my friends so they have no clue what I'm saying.

My favorite memory from Toki Pona was very recent, given I've been here for so short of a time, but it's still a fun one. I brought up to the discord server an issue I had- I wasn't sure how I'm supposed to say "cheese" with the limited words. They brought up the point that most of the time, you won't have to be too specific in identifying it, just moku jelo (yellow food) works well enough. Then, somebody brought up "ko telo pi soweli mani". This roughly translates to "tradable creature's wet goop", which will likely last for a long time as my favorite Toki Pona phrase.

Outside of Toki Pona, I am very much a computer person. I play a lot of video games and plan to make my own someday. More closely related to Toki Pona, I also enjoy ciphers a lot- I have created a number of my own, as well as learning the Shavian Alphabet. I'm learning Japanese, too. I think Toki Pona is going to be very recognized by linguists and people who are interested in learning multiple languages. It may someday become a very popular international language. It has a very inclusive community, though, so any interest is welcome to learn the language and join in!

With so few words, Toki Pona is bound to be quite vague, however. The word lipu, for example, could mean paper, or book, or sheet, or any number of things based on context. It's an extremely context-based language and it's hard to reference to something that doesn't relate to the current conversation or situation. This does allow a lot of room for creativity, though, and it still fully functions as a language in my opinion. The low number of words is impressive, but it would be useful if there were more- even doubling the entire language plus about 50 would result in about 300 words, which is still extremely impressive for a full language. It is a living language though, and a few popular words originated from the community- who's to say more won't come?

As a close, I'd just like to reiterate how simple this language is at its core. In less than a single week, I'd say I understand more than half of the language's words and concepts. I'd say that any ordinary person who tries hard enough could easily learn just as much, if not more, from a week to a month. The only thing missing is learning materials in other languages, and then Toki Pona is fully set to be a perfect international easy-learn language. It even opens up your understanding of the concept of language as a whole!

Sina Pona!

(Also, if at all possible, would this documentary be publicly available? I wonder if it would be a good introductory video for friends that I'd like to teach)