Avoid common Hawaiian language pitfalls

Aloha mai kakou i keia pule, 

An issue that keeps coming up in the Hawaiian-speaking community is getting from an intermediate/advanced level of knowing a lot of phrases and kind of speaking the Hawaiian language to really being able to express yourself and speak the language fluently. 

What I’m seeing, and I think is part of the problem, is an old-school style of learning. I think there’s too heavy of an emphasis on reading and writing the language and not enough emphasis on speaking. 

When learning Hawaiian, just like English, there’s a big difference in the way you read or write (usually it’s formal), and the way you talk story with your friends (informal). 

We can learn all day long how to write sentence structures and memorize vocabulary, but that won’t do us much good if we don’t practice having conversations. Even better if we learn to have conversations from Native speakers.

For example, when you listen to Native speakers, you might notice how they use ua, the past tense marker. Once they’ve established that they are speaking in past tense, they will use ua initially, but they don’t keep saying ua over and over again because the context has already been established.

You’ll learn many differences between writing and speaking like this one that will help you express yourself more fluently in my newest Hawaiian language course, Mahele 2: Building Fluency Through Hawaiian Expression 

Let me know… Have you noticed any differences in the way Hawaiian is written versus what you hear when listening to Native speakers?  

Me ke aloha,

Malu

Ka-alala.mykajabi.com