Basic Grammar

This section talks about the structure of Hawaiian and simple things to note when learning the language. Hawaiian is a fairly simple language to learn if one just applies themself and studies every day. The language is a beautiful array of sounds and culture, and with a little practice on the grammar, you will be speaking in no time!

Letters

The Hawaiian consonants are h, k, l, m, n, p, w, and the ʻokina, which represents a glottal stop in the voice when speaking, which is the sound between vowels in the expression "uh-oh." The vowels are the same as in English, a, e, i, o, u, with one exception: a kahakō can be placed over any vowel to make its length increase, and is expressed as a line over a vowel.

Note how hale (house) has a short a, compared to kāne (man).

Notice that ʻokina has an ʻokina, and kahakō has a kahakō.

Another rule in Hawaiian is that there are no consonant clusters in the language. That is, consonants (including the ʻokina) are never found side by side in a word. They can also never end a word. Vowels have more freedom because they can lie next to each other.

Note the following sounds:

Hawaiian	Sound	With the Kahakō
A	Ah	ā - Aah
E	Eh	ē - Eeh
I	Ee	ī - Eee
O	Oh	ō - Ohh
U	Oo	ū - Ooo

A makes an ah sound, as in father.

E makes an eh sound, as in elephant.

I makes an ee sound, as in bee.

O makes an oh sound, as in ocean.

U makes an oo sound, as in blue.

All of the consonants are pronounced the same as in English, except the w, which is usually pronounced as a "V" after a, i, or e. It is usually pronounced as a "W" at the beginning of a word, or after o, or u.

Do Not Get Confused

There are some sets of vowels that can be a bit tricky to distinguish. For example, determining ao from au, or ae from ai. Study the table, and be sure to distinguish the last vowel in each diphthong.

Ae	Ai
Ao	Au
E	Ei
Oe	Oi
O	Ou
Ou	Au

Vocabulary

In each lesson, you will be given a short list of vocabulary words to learn. These will help you in future lessons and increase your knowledge about the language.

Kāne - man	Wahine - woman
Kumu - teacher	Haumāna - student
Hoaaloha - friend	Keiki - child
Pua - flower	One - sand
Kula - school	ʻOhana - family
Kaʻa - car	Hale - house
Maikaʻi - good	Maʻi - sick
Hauʻoli - happy	Kaumaha - sad
Māluhiluhi - tired	ʻOluʻolu - kind
Liʻiliʻi - little	Nui - big
Nani - pretty	Pupuka - ugly

Nā Kaʻi

A kaʻi is a lead word that helps a noun along. A noun cannot sit by itself: the noun and the "noun announcer" are locked together like they are married. The most common are the two, ka and ke, which mean the in Hawaiian. Ke is used before any word beginning with k, e, a, or o. An easy trick to remember this is that the letters it goes with spells out "ke ao" which means the cloud in Hawaiian

Another common pair of kaʻi are he and nā. He means a or an. Nā goes along with ka and ke, meaning the, but indicates the noun is plural.

for example:

ke kāne vs. nā kāne - the man vs. the men

ka wahine vs. nā wāhine - the woman vs. the women

he kāne - a man

he wahine - a woman

More kaʻi include kēia and kēlā; this and that, koʻu; my, kou; your, kona; his, her, or its. These all can occur before a noun, which has to be preceded by one of these. Be aware of the ʻokina in koʻu, compared to kou. Make sure to not blend the o and the u. And it does not make an ow sound, as in couch, but rather the sound of a regular o, with the u-sound emphasized at the end.

Word	Use
Ke	The (before: k, e, a or o - definite article)
Ka	The (singular, definite article)
He	A or An (indefinite article)
Nā	The (plural, definite article)
Kēlā	That
Kēia	This
Koʻu	My
Kou	Your
Kona	His, Her, or Its

Conversations

I'm sure this is what you've been waiting for; how to say hello and have a basic conversation with someone. But first, we need to learn eight very important puzzle pieces to put together. The basic greeting is formed by saying Aloha, followed by the time of day, then how many people are in the conversation, ending with addressing the person.

Greeting	Time	Number
	Kakahiaka (6:00-10:00)
Aloha	Awakea (10:00-14:00)	Kāua
	ʻAuinalā (14:00-18:00)	Kākou
	Ahiahi (18:00-22:00)

Now to explain all of this. Aloha literally means love, but here, it is used as a normal greeting. Kakahiaka is morning, usually said from 6:00-10:00 am, as awakea is said from 10:00-2:00 and means noontime. ʻAuinalā is afternoon, from 2:00-6:00, and ahiahi is evening, from 6:00-10:00. Note that these times are approximate, and do not need to be followed exactly, but they are helpful guidelines when talking with a native speaker.

Kāua refers to the dual form, which is the speaker and the person spoken to. Kākou is the plural form, and refers to more than three people in the group (Greetings to all of us). Notice how Hawaiian finds it respectful to add oneself in the greeting, therefore more than three people indicates that the speaker of the greeting is talking to two people. When addressing the other person, start with e and say their name.

And of course, any of these can be left out. It is not wrong for one to only say "aloha", "aloha ahiahi", or even "aloha kāua". Even the address to the other person may be left out, but it is good to know all of the greetings.

Hawaiian	English
Aloha kāua, e Kanani!	Hello, Kanani!
Aloha kakahiaka, e Niala. Pehea ʻoe?	Good morning, Niala. How are you?
Maikaʻi au. A ʻo ʻoe, pehea ʻoe?	I'm good/well. And you, how are you?
Maʻi au	I'm sick.

Or if you are meeting someone for the first time, you could ask them their name:

Aloha.	Greetings.
Aloha kāua. ʻO wai kou inoa?	Hello to both of us. What is your name?
ʻO name koʻu inoa.	name is my name

Explanation:

ʻO - shows the subject of a sentence when a proper noun.

Wai - Who

Kou - Your

Inoa - Name

Note: Keep in mind that one does not answer the question, "Pehea ʻoe?" with how they are actually feeling. It is more appropriate to respond with "Maikaʻi", rather than anything else. Negative words have negative power, and are looked at by the Hawaiians as people of the mainland see profanity. "Everyone knows such words, and may use them in some circumstances, but they are not appropriate in most circumstances." (-Ho‘olele Hualono HAW101 Podcast; Mokuna 2, Helu 1) It is somewhat fine to find such words with close friends or in historical writings. It is inappropriate to say them in a classroom or in a formal setting.

Note: Another little tidbit to know, would be the three words that always come together: Please, Thank you, and You're Welcome. ʻOluʻolu (please), Mahalo (thank you), and He mea iki (you're welcome- or literally: "a little thing").

Simple Sentence

A simple Hawaiian sentence's general structure is adjective-noun announcer-noun/proper noun. This is used to say "a noun" is "an adjective", as in Maikaʻi ka pua. Literally: Good the Flower; the flower is good. Notice how the adjective goes to the front of the sentence, and the subject comes after it. If the subject comes first, it would make an entirely different phrase. It would not be a complete sentence, but rather, a fragment, or a part of a complete sentence. In a different sentence structure, the adjective comes after the object it describes. ex: ka pua maikaʻi: the good flower. Compare the two groups of words:

Maikaʻi ka pua.	The flower is good.
Ka pua maikaʻi	The good flower

One must be consciously aware of this switch, and organize their sentence accordingly.

Nani ka wahine.	The woman is pretty.
Ka wahine nani	The beautiful woman

Pupuka ka hale.	The house is ugly.
Ka hale pupuka	The ugly house

Nui ke keiki.	The child is big.
Ke keiki nui	The big child

See the difference?

Common Pronouns

In Hawaiian, pronouns are called Papani. Papani, as in English, are people, being I, You, He/She/It/One, We, You, They. I suppose the first, and most obvious, pronouns that you should learn would be, I, you (singular) and he/she/it.

English	Hawaiian	Notes
I	au or wau
you	ʻoe	As always, do not forget the ʻokina at the beginning; it is part of the word.
he or she	ʻo ia	ʻo ia is two words and not one; it is never one word.

Aia Sentences

Most Hawaiian sentences resemble a squid, having three parts; the head - poʻo, the connector - piko, and the tentacles - ʻawe. The head represents the main idea of that sentence, the connector being the subject, and the tentacles are the rest of the sentence. An aia sentence is a location sentence in Hawaiian. It describes when or where something is. These sentences are so called because they always start with the word "aia". Its closest translation in English would be to be. (am, is, are, etc.)

To form an Aia sentence, first you must know what an "ʻami" is. A ʻami is a joint word that tells one of four things;

Hawaiian	English	Notes
i	to, on, in, at
o	of
ma	on, in, at	notice that "ma" means the same as "i", except for "to". Do not get mixed up.
me	with

Helpful Hint: Try not to mix up "ma" and "me". They look very much alike, so remember that ma means in, on or at, and me means with.

Practice

With the family	Me ka ʻohana
to the school	I ke kula
in the car	Ma ke kaʻa

Aia au ma ke kula.	I am at (the) school.
Aia ʻoe me ke keiki.	You are with the child.
Aia ke lūʻau i kēia lā.	The lūʻau is today.

Try creating your own Aia sentences using the following pattern:

Aia + (noun announcer) + Noun + Rest of the Sentence (ʻAmi + Direct Object)

More Pronouns

The next pronouns that one must learn, are as follows:

English	Hawaiian
we	kākou
you all	ʻoukou
they	lākou

Note how they all end in -kou, and we and they both end in -ākou. It is important that the student make these type of connections when studying so that the information gets permanently located in their memory. Also, all of these pronouns refer to three or more people; Hawaiian has different sets of pronouns that can be used depending on the situation. We will explain those in later lessons.

Practice

Nani lākou.	They are pretty.
Nui ʻoukou.	You all are big.
E Kanani, maʻi kākou.	Kanani, we are sick.

All that you've learned

Go through the list of what you were supposed to learn from this lesson, and if you cannot identify something, go back and reread about it.

Ke Kāne, Ka Wahine, Ke Keiki, Ka Haumāna, Ke Kumu, Ka Hoaaloha, Ka Pua, Ke One, Ke Kula, Ka ʻOhana, Ke Kaʻa, Ka Hale, Maikaʻi, Maʻi, Hauʻoli, Kaumaha, Māluhiluhi, ʻOluʻolu, Liʻiliʻi, Nui, Nani, Pupuka, Ka/Ke, the rest of the Kaʻi, Aloha: Kakahiaka/Awakea/ʻAuinalā/Ahiahi, Kāua, Kākou, ʻO wai kou inoa and how to respond, Au/ʻOe/ʻO ia, How to form an Aia sentence, kākou, ʻoukou, Lākou.

Maikaʻi! You have finished lesson 1 of Hawaiian! Make sure to practice what you've learned by creating your own sentences and rereading anything you did not understand fully.