Ke Alahou, Volume I, Number 6, 1 May 1980 — KA 'OLELO MAKUA [ARTICLE]

KA 'OLELO MAKUA

Hawaiian Language Lessons

Some subscribers to Ke Alahou may have a limited ability to read and understand Hawaiian. The editors of Ke Alahou have decided to help by offerins some chies to reāding and understanding Hawaiian. This issue's !esson deals with uiiderstanding some basic wbrds and sentence patterns 111 Hawaiian. The basic order of a verb sentence is Verb Sub)ect ~ Object. Forexample; Uahele(V) + 4 o Manu (S) — i ka hale leka [0] — Went - Manu + to the post office or Manu werit to the post offiee. This contrasts with the normal English struciure where the sub|oct prticedes the verb. Verb tense markets are: 1) for past tense and usually begins a sentejnce, 2] Ke'(verb) nei for pivsent and 3] E (verb)'ana for liiture or even present trnse. Fxamples: 1) Ua hele Lani went. 2) Ke hele net 'o Lani. Lani j is nciw4oing. 3) E holo ana 4 o LanL Lani will go, T ■ , ! 1

This is in contrast to En&lish where the form of ihe word may cliange to indicate the tense sucb as "g<cT chan$ing to "went* in the past tense, or tt ear chau£ing to "ate" in the past tense, Articles; "The' - There arc two defuiite articlcs in Hawaiian, They are ka and ke. As a &eneral ru!e ke usually precedes \yords that start witli the letters K,E,C. and A. Therefore it may be .safe to that woi\ls beginning \vith other letters follow ka. It also may be safe to assume that these words are nouns. (Watcli out for ihe ,ke (verb) nei pattern. It is easy to confuse this wiih the article ko - the differenoe ts oae precedes verbs anct the other procedes nouns,J Ad]ectives: They follow the noun in Hawalian (while in Eixglish they pivcodo the noiin). For examplo: "Tho &ood book" i$ "Ka puke niaika'i," Or w Tho red car w whieh is "Ka ka'a \jla\:ki.