Before you start

Learning Tongan: questions answered

Is Tongan a hard language to learn?

Some of Tongan is more regular than an English speaker might expect, and some of it takes real work. Tongan is spelled the way it sounds: a letter always stands for the same sound, so once you know the 17 letters you can read any Tongan word aloud. A Tongan verb does not change form to show tense; the tense marker in front of the verb tells you when the action happened. The work is in what English does not have, such as two kinds of "we" depending on whether the listener is included, and two classes of possessive chosen by your relationship to the thing rather than by the thing itself.

Where can I learn to speak Tongan?

You can start online at leafakatonga.org, a 52-lesson Tongan course that teaches you to build sentences yourself, beginning in Lesson 1 with a three-part pattern: tense marker, pronoun, verb. Each lesson explains one part of the language in plain words, and the pronunciation guide shows how each letter sounds, so you can say the printed examples aloud as you go. Audio for the Tongan examples is forthcoming and has no release date yet, so practise with Tongan speakers whenever you can.

Naʻá ke kai?
Did you eat?

Naʻá ku kai.
I ate.

Is there a free way to learn Tongan online?

Yes. During the free preview, all 52 lessons of Lea Faka-Tonga are open in your browser. It is a complete Tongan course taken in order, from a three-part sentence in Lesson 1 to advanced grammar, and each lesson has explanations in plain words, exercises and a ten-question quiz that explains the answer. The full book is a free download as a PDF or EPUB, and the book stays free.

What app teaches Tongan?

Lea Faka-Tonga teaches Tongan in your web browser, on a phone or a computer, with nothing to install. It is a 52-lesson course that runs from the basic sentence to advanced grammar, and each lesson has worked examples, practice built into the page and a ten-question quiz, with drills, flip cards and a searchable dictionary alongside. All 52 lessons are open during the free preview with no signup, and the book is free as a PDF or EPUB.

Start with Lesson 1

Lesson 1 teaches the three-part pattern and shows you how to use it to make statements and ask questions about past actions. Later lessons add to what you already understand, so the order matters more than the pace.

The Tongan alphabet and pronunciation · Tongan greetings and what they mean · Tongan tense markers explained · Tongan word order · Saying "not" in Tongan · Tongan possessives · The Tongan ko pattern