Common mistakes with pi

People try to use pi to mean "about" (as in "We talked about something."). While pi can be used in this way, most people use it too much.

mi toki jan.

I talked about people

The "about" is simply implied by the sentence. Now here's another sentence which is correct and in which pi is used to mean "about":

mi toki pi jan ike.

I talked about bad people.

The reason that pi can be used here is because jan ike is its own singular, individual concept, and the combined phrase (jan ike) acts on toki as one thing; pi is simply used to distinguish the jan ike phrase. If you left out pi, both jan and ike would become adverbs, and the sentence would mean something really strange like "Humanely, I talked evilly."

The word immediately after the pi must have another word that describes it.

Another mistake is that people use pi when they should use tan:

mi kama tan ma Mewika.

I come from America.