Thanks for the very lengthy response; it certainly clears things up
(and then some). My confusion now is to when I'm creating ideas, like
telling a story. In English, I'd say "A dog went to drink from its
bowl. The dog was blue." It sounds like in Lojban, I would use {lo}
instead of "A", and then {lo bi'u} to replace "the"?
{lo bi'u nai}. {lo bi'u gerku} would be (more or less) "another dog". But that's not the trend; I'd say your sentence more like this: {lo gerku pu klama pinxe fi lo ri kabri .i gy blanu}.
Also, I'm a little confused as to your last bit about the banana - how
would one distinguish between "I eat bananas" and "I just ate a
banana"? Would "I just ate a banana" become "I eat bananas.. just
now"?
One would distinguish using optional tenses. {mi citka lo badna} say that at some point in time and space, for some duration, etc. there is a relationship between me and some bananas in which I eat some of them.
{mi ca citka lo badna}
{mi ba'o citka lo badna}
{mi ca ba'o citka lo badna}
{mi ta'e citka lo badna}
{mi citka pa badna}
{mi citka so'i badna}
These are all things that {mi citka lo badna} could mean, according to context. {za'a} In lojban you try to avoid unnecessary over-specification, and try to make as general a statement as you can while getting your point across.