A bit of snapshot of the Pohnpeian language from a learner (sometimes frustrated and slow). or just my impressions, some of them

there are some letters and sounds that english uses that pohnpeian do not use, included in these is the "H" sound in english. english "T, like tea" is a pohnpeian "tch/sh" sound to me. some sounds in pohnpeian are not used in english, like a sort of "ng" sound that's not super throaty or anything, but sometimes hard to get for myself.
tangentially, when we were still in our orientation process a few months ago, our instructor, Johnny, taught a lesson that came off more like a SNL skit than anything else here so far (I think, yet), about that very letter combination and sound, "ng" "and the" "regular" "n" "sound" "in" "english". it was amusing, partly because of the amazingly awesome qualities that surround the teacher in this instance (maybe a bit smurfish, not blue at all though...is that a nice thing to say? what's the deal with the smurfs anyway, anyone have an idea?)

a few vocabularies:
hello/goodbye greating --- kaselehlia
man --- ohl woman --- lih
what's up/going on/what are you doing --- dakot, damenkewiwia, and more
ihmw --- house

Madolenihmw means "space between the houses"ish and it draws it name from the Nan Madol ruins which lay on Temwen island, about a ten minute walk from my house.

There isn't a "be verb" which throws an native english speaking brain for a loop, at least mine. It makes me realize things about language and how it shapes our thinking of the world though. english does an awful lot of describing how something "is" and how you are "being" is very important. Given my limited exposure to Pohnpeian (and lack of "formal" linguistics education, of sorts), it seems that it is more centered around where you are placed in the world than how you are being in the world. who knows though, not me, it's just an observation