Spoken Hawaiian

this is an excellent book for learning the essentials of the Hawaiian language. Recommended as a first book.

Full disclosure: I have an MA in Linguistics from the Univ. of Hawaii. I did not learn Hawaiian from this book, but I have used it since to teach classes on the mainland. It is not the newest Hawaiian grammar, nor one of the ones the Hawaiian people are now using in immersion schools for their kids, but it is the best for mainlanders in my opinion because: (1) It is laid out in an easy-to-use fashion; (2) It doesn't start with "what is your name," telling time and the weather. Honestly, do you go around talking about names, the time and the weather in English? You would sound like Forrest Gump. This is my biggest beef with language texts, and I have no clue how adults can be motivated to learn from such books. Spoken Hawaiian starts out with a simple, unbelabored intro to pronunciation--which can be pretty scary for a mainland English-only speaker--and goes immediately to a short list of Hawaiian words used in English on the Islands. Even mainlanders may know some of these (like "aloha" and "kahuna") and be comforted. Then the book gets right into simple sentences and dialogues that at least attempt to have a non-insulting, plausible context to them. (Life is not like a box of chocolates in this grammar book.) Spoken Hawaiian was written by a pro linguist who also taught the language, and the benefit of this is that grammar is spoon-fed, little by little, in the guise of sentence "patterns" that are then practiced in exercises that expand knowledge gradually. Hawaiian grammar is really different from English, and for presenting it to learners, this is the least confusing book I've seen.The drawback is that the book is old, from the time when only academics and other dilettantes, and maybe the occasional hula student, really wanted to know Hawaiian. The spelling of certain words is outdated, and the vocabulary is limited. Newer books, like Olelo Oiwi by Hokulani Cleeland, provide newer words and a ton more info on usage, social context, geographic dialect variations, etc. Olelo Oiwi (which means 'native language') was put out by a group that is working to revive Hawaiian as a native language. Anyone who really wants to get with the program and has a political or social commitment to Hawaii will want to use it. But I find its layout wordy and confusing for newcomers on the mainland, who really want just to know the basics, or want to converse about non-Hawaiian topics. (I am teaching serious hula students/culture learners on the East Coast; both Hawaiian and haole.) For mainlanders, including ethnic Hawaiians with little contact back home, I would suggest Spoken Hawaiian first, and using Olelo Oiwi as a follow-on and review book. If you're going to be living in Hawaii and/or travelling in Hawaiian cultural circles, though, you're going to want to get into Olelo Oiwi as soon as possible, even if it means learning to count, tell time, and talk about the weather first. The Hawaiian people are serious about getting their language ba

Combining fascinating information on Hawai'ian culture together with comprehensive grammatical explanations, Spoken Hawaiian goes above and beyond most other foreign language texts, allowing the reader to slowly become fully immersed. For anyone learning Hawai'ian from the very start, or interested in Hawai'ian culture, this book is a must