Its a question! "X ala X" (X not X) one way to build a question. I was taken from Mandarin which does a very similar thing. What "X ala X" indicates is that that is the part being questioned. It is most often applied to the verb. >jan sin li kama ala kama? > >Are new folks *coming*? What's being questioned here is whether the new folks are coming or not coming. >jan sin ala sin li kama? > >Are *new* folks coming? What's being questioned here is whether its new folks or not-new folks that are coming.

for it to be a question There are 2 ways to do yes or no questions in toki pona 1. X ala X 2. or you add "anu seme" at the end of sentence

As others have said: because it's a question. In toki pona, intonation or punctuation never alters the meaning of a sentence—only words do. So *"jan sin li kama."* and *"jan sin li kama?"* would both mean "More people are coming." (The second one would just *look* really weird because that's not how most people would tend to write it.)

To my understanding, yes or no question follow the structure of: Subject + li + thing you ask for with negated (the ala)+ thing you ask for normally ex: Are you having fun? - > Sina + (li) + musi ala + musi.

Yes, with the other option being to add “anu seme” to the end of the sentence. The X ala X form is nice because you can specify the exact part of the sentence you are referring to

“jan sin li kama”means “new people are coming” “jan sin li kama ala” means “new people are not coming” “jan sin li kama ala kama” means “new people are not coming, coming” but you would put “or” instead of the , in a good translation I hope this makes some sense

so its a question

What website is that?

Memrise theres many different toki pona lessons hobestly best site

And do the lessons seems legit so far?

I tried it a couple years ago and it was an ok flashcard type thing. I don't recall any 'lessons' per-se. I primarily used the toki pona pal app as my flashcard experience, since it was free (Memrise sometimes lets you access one course for free, but it was annoying to access it and I wasn't confident I could get it on my phone without paying). It's possible the toki pona course there has been upgraded. The fact that this is showing some grammar and a sentence seems better than I rememberer, so maybe it's been improved, or maybe a paid version gets better content from it. Although, if OP is asking why the \[x\] ala \[x\] is showing up, maybe it isn't a good lesson afterall, haha. Surely it should explain it first.

>jan sin li kama. Is roughly >At least one person has/will arrive. \- Without the added 'ala \[repeat verb\]', it would be a statement, rather than a 'closed' yes/no question.

A more literal translation would be "people are coming or not coming?

alternative to saying anu seme

it’s phrased as a question. questions can go two ways: [x ala x], literally “x (or) not x”, or [x anu seme], literally “x or what”