Let’s take your Hawaiian vocabulary to the next level…

Aloha mai kakou,

Now that you all have your vocabulary lists in your homes (like we talked about last week), let’s take your language skills to the next level.

Putting those words into phrases will help fill your day with plenty of ways to use Hawaiian… and it’s easier than you think. 

I found and learned phrases and sentence structures in a bunch of ways…

• On wehewehe.org
• In books
• From conversations with friends
• By listening to recordings of Native speakers

Once I had a phrase (which is just a sentence structure), I needed to know what vocabulary I could use to make the most of it by replacing verbs, names, nouns etc…

Example: Pololi oe? “Are you hungry?”

You can change the pronoun oe to au and now you can say pololi au meaning “I’m hungry.” Or change pololi to luhi. Luhi oe? meaning “Are you tired?”

I just want to add… I know everyone wants to, but be careful when “translating” English to Hawaiian. Idioms and metaphors especially. 

Example: Greetings or farewells like, “have a good day” is a strange thing to say in Hawaiian. I know some people translate this directly, but you’ll never hear me do it. It’s always better to translate the idea than word for word. On the flip side, aloha mai kakou (may there be an empathetic/compassionate relationship between us). This is not an everyday greeting in English and would be a strange thing to say. These are both unique and commonly used in their own languages and we like it that way. 

Keep up the great work. Simple, everyday practices, like, intentionally choosing a phrase to work on will make all the difference in the long game, and that’s what we’re going for! 

What new phrase are you going to practice this week? Send me a quick email and let me know. 

Aloha,

Malu

Ka-alala.mykajabi.com