The Tongan alphabet
Tongan has just 16 letters plus the fakauʻa (ʻ). It’s written the way it sounds, so once you know the letters you can read any Tongan word out loud.
The fakauʻa (ʻ) changes the word
The ʻ is a real letter: a short catch in the throat, like the break in “uh-oh”. Leave it out and you can say a different word:
Say every vowel
Every Tongan word ends in a vowel, and every vowel is said on its own, even when two or three are side by side:
Long vowels (ā ē ī ō ū)
The line over a vowel means you hold it for twice as long. Older books write it as a double vowel (maavae for māvae). It changes the meaning too:
Where the stress goes
Stress the second-to-last vowel:
After e, o or he (“the”), the stress moves to the last vowel, sometimes written with a mark: he pule´ (the boss), he tangata´ (the man).
The best way to learn is to listen to fluent speakers and copy them.
Keep going: flashcards, the phrasebook, today’s Kumi Lea word game, or the dictionary.