Grammar

How to say "not" in Tongan: ʻikai

ʻOku ou fiefia is "I am happy". ʻOku ʻikai té u fiefia is "I am not happy". The word for "not" is ʻikai, and it goes in near the front of the sentence, between the tense marker and whatever follows it. Nothing at the end of the sentence moves.

ʻOku ou fiefia.
I am happy.

ʻOku ʻikai té u fiefia.
I am not happy. (Literally "is not I happy")

One extra word rides along with ʻikai, and it is either te or ke. Which one you get depends on what comes next, and that single choice is most of what makes Tongan negation feel unfamiliar at first. The rest of this page is that choice, what it does to the tense markers, and the two other places negation turns up.

With a pronoun: ʻikai te

When the subject is a pronoun, ʻikai te goes between the tense marker and the pronoun. The positive sentence runs marker, pronoun, verb; the negative runs marker, ʻikai te, pronoun, verb.

Positive	Negative
ʻOku ou fiefia. I am happy.	ʻOku ʻikai té u fiefia. I am not happy.
ʻOkú ke mohe. You are sleeping.	ʻOku ʻikai té ke mohe. You are not sleeping.
ʻOkú ne ʻita. He is angry.	ʻOku ʻikai té ne ʻita. He is not angry.
ʻOku mau helaʻia. We are tired.	ʻOku ʻikai te mau helaʻia. We are not tired.
ʻOku nau fiekaia. They are hungry.	ʻOku ʻikai te nau fiekaia. They are not hungry.

After te, the word for "I" is u, the same form it takes with the future marker in té u ʻalu (I will go). Every other pronoun keeps its usual shape.

The te in ʻikai te is not the future tense marker. It is a connecting word that appears only in the negative, in front of a pronoun, and it has no English translation of its own. It still follows the stress rule from lesson 2: te joins with a one-syllable pronoun as a single spoken unit, which is why this course writes ʻikai té u, ʻikai té ke and ʻikai té ne with the accent.

Descriptive words fill the verb slot in Tongan, so an adjective negates exactly the same way an action verb does.

ʻOku ʻikai té ne helaʻia.
He is not tired.

ʻOku ʻikai te nau ʻita.
They are not angry.

ʻOku ʻikai té ne ngāue mālohi.
He does not work hard.

With no pronoun: ʻikai ke

Naʻe matangi ʻanepō is "it was windy last night", and there is no pronoun in it, because no person is doing anything. To negate a sentence like that, the link word is ke rather than te.

Naʻe matangi ʻanepō.
It was windy last night.

Naʻe ʻikai ke matangi ʻanepō.
It was not windy last night.

ʻOku ʻikai ke ʻuha.
It is not raining.

ʻE ʻikai ke momoko ʻapongipongi.
It will not be cold tomorrow.

The rule in one line: ʻikai te in front of a pronoun, ʻikai ke in front of a verb. It is the same split you already meet in the tense markers themselves, where one form is used before pronouns and another everywhere else.

The past and future markers change shape

A positive past sentence opens naʻá ku, because naʻa is the form used directly in front of a pronoun. In the negative the word after the tense marker is ʻikai, which is not a pronoun, so the marker becomes naʻe. The future does the same thing: té u in the positive, ʻe ʻikai té u in the negative.

Tense	Negative	English
Present	ʻOku ʻikai té u fiefia.	I am not happy.
Past	Naʻe ʻikai té u fiefia.	I was not happy.
Future	ʻE ʻikai té u fiefia.	I will not be happy.

Naʻe ʻikai té u tokoni kia Sione.
I did not help Sione.

ʻE ʻikai té ke nofo ʻi Tonga.
You will not stay in Tonga.

Naʻe ʻikai te mau kai ika ʻanepō.
We did not eat fish last night.

You may also hear he ʻikai te where ʻe ʻikai te is expected in a future negative. It gives the denial stronger emphasis, and it means the same thing.

When the subject is a name

Naʻe ʻikai ke ʻalu ʻa Sione is "Sione did not go". A name is not a pronoun, so it takes ʻikai ke, and it stays after the verb with its usual ʻa in front of it.

Naʻe ʻikai ke ʻalu ʻa Sione.
Sione did not go.

ʻOku ʻikai ke puke ʻa Pita.
Pita is not sick.

Tense	Pronoun subject	Noun subject
Present	ʻOku ʻikai té ne ʻalu.	ʻOku ʻikai ke ʻalu ʻa Sione.
Past	Naʻe ʻikai té ne ʻalu.	Naʻe ʻikai ke ʻalu ʻa Sione.
Future	ʻE ʻikai té ne ʻalu.	ʻE ʻikai ke ʻalu ʻa Sione.

Saying what something is not

Ko e hele ʻeni is "this is a knife", a sentence with no verb and no tense marker at all. To negate it, ʻoku ʻikai is placed in front of the ko, which wraps the whole identification in a negative frame and brings in a tense marker the positive sentence never had.

Ko e hele ʻeni.
This is a knife.

ʻOku ʻikai ko e hele ʻeni.
This is not a knife.

ʻOku ʻikai ko e faiako ia.
He or she is not a teacher.

Naʻe ʻikai ko e faiako ʻa Fehoko.
Fehoko was not a teacher.

The last line shows the past doing what it does everywhere else on this page: naʻe, because ʻikai follows.

Saying you do not have something

Tongan has no verb meaning "to have". Possession is said with ʻoku ʻi ai ("there is") and a possessive, so the negative of "I have" is the negative of "there is".

ʻOku ʻi ai haʻo kato?
Do you have a basket? (Literally "Is there a-your basket?")

ʻOku ʻikai ke ʻi ai haʻaku hele.
I do not have a knife. (Literally "There is not a knife of mine.")

ʻIkai on its own

Asked Naʻá ke kai? (Did you eat?), you can answer with the single word ʻIkai. That is the same word doing duty as a complete reply, and it is the counterpart of ʻIo (yes).

Naʻá ke kai?
Did you eat?

ʻIkai.
No.

Not too, and not at all

Two words tune the strength of a negative. Loko weakens it to "not too" or "not particularly", and it sits after ke. Teitei strengthens it to "at all" or "certainly not", and it sits after the pronoun.

ʻOku ʻikai ke loko lelei ʻa e ika.
The fish is not too good.

ʻOku ʻikai ke loko momoko.
It is not too cold.

ʻE ʻikai té u teitei ʻalu.
I am certainly not going.

Naʻe ʻikai té u teitei kai.
I absolutely did not eat.

Neither word appears outside a negative in this sense: loko follows a negative and teitei sits inside one.

The other negative: taʻe-

ʻOku taʻe tokanga ʻa Sione means "Sione is inattentive", and it negates the same sentence that ʻoku ʻikai ke tokanga negates. The difference is mechanical: ʻikai is a separate word that sits between the tense marker and the verb with ke or te linking it, while taʻe- attaches directly to the word it negates, the way English "un-" does.

With ʻikai	With taʻe-	English
ʻOku ʻikai ke tokanga ʻa Sione.	ʻOku taʻe tokanga ʻa Sione.	Sione is inattentive.
Naʻe ʻikai ke feʻunga ʻene ngāué.	Naʻe taʻe feʻunga ʻene ngāué.	His work was inadequate.

The taʻe- form often carries a slightly stronger or more definite negative tone. Put the two negatives in one sentence and they cancel, giving an emphatic positive: ʻE ʻikai té u taʻe fai e ngāué ni is "I will certainly do this work", built out of "I will not not-do this work".

Drill the one choice that matters

The te and ke split is the one thing on this page you have to reach for without thinking, so it is worth drilling on its own until the choice stops being a decision.

The Tongan alphabet and pronunciation · Tongan greetings and what they mean · Tongan tense markers explained · Tongan word order · Tongan possessives · The Tongan ko pattern