lili - little, small, short; few; a bit; young
mute - many, a lot, more, much, several, very; quantity
ala - no, not, zero; nothing
ni - that, this
wawa - strong, powerful; confident, sure, energetic, intense
weka - absent, away, ignored
ken - be allowed to, can, may; possible
modifiers go after the word they're modifying.
soweli lili
~ small animal
to do possessive, you modify the word with a pronoun.
soweli lili mi
~ my small animal
keep in mind that if you modify mi or sina, you need to use li afterwards.
mi mute li wawa
~ we are strong
(remember - number rarely needs to be specified, so this could just be "mi wawa" instead)
remember that there are no set compounds in toki pona. you're supposed to break down the things around you and explain them using toki pona's vocabulary, and this means that one phrase can mean many different things.
just because i translate a phrase as something, doesn't mean that's the only translation. this also means that you might translate something very differently from how i do!
if your translation in one of the exercises differs from mine, and you feel like yours might be right, feel free to just like ask me on discord (soweli Tesa#5356) or ask another proficient speaker.
many possibilities
the strong animal is not small
they're a bad person
i don't like when you're away
your absence is bad
this is not good
soweli lili li suwi mute!
waso li ken
jan lili li weka
wawa mi li pona lili
jan mute li toki pona
jan lili weka li musi pona
the absent children li play nicely