Top Hawaiian Words to Know Before Visiting Hawaii with Kahanuola Solatorio

Free Guide to Words to Know Before You Visit

The first thing you’ll meet in Hawaii isn’t the beach. It’s the language.
Learning a few real words helps you read signs, follow directions, and show respect from day one.
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If you’ve ever wondered how to read kāne/wahine restroom signs, what kapu means, or when to use makai and mauka, this episode is for you. We’ll also cover everyday words like aloha, mahalo, and mālama so you can connect with confidence.
In this episode of our travel podcast, we share the most useful Hawaiian words for visitors, how to say each island name, and simple etiquette to travel with care.
👉 In this episode, you will:

• Learn the day-one words you’ll see and hear, plus how to pronounce each island name with confidence.
• Understand culture and etiquette, including kapu areas and how to mālama ʻāina.
• Pick up simple phrases for food, family, hotels, beaches, and wildlife so you feel comfortable everywhere you go.

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Scroll up ⬆️ and hit play now to get trip-ready language tips before you land.
🎧Related episodes with Kahanui:

• The Ban and Revitalization of the Hawaiian Language
• The True Meaning of Aloha

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📱Connect with Kahanui:

• Instagram: @ehoopilimai

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💻Related blog posts:

• What Does Kapu Mean?
• A Hui Hou Meaning

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🤓Chapters:

• 1:45 Meet Kahanuola Solatorio
• 2:48 Essential Hawaiian Words and Phrases
• 5:36 Hawaiian Vocabulary
• 16:53 Understanding 'Kanaka' and Directions in Hawaii
• 18:04 Common Hawaiian Words and Their Meanings
• 19:59 Pronouncing Hawaiian Island Names Correctly
• 27:45 Resources for Learning Hawaiian Language

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This Hawaii podcast is for travelers looking to plan a trip to Hawaii. Discover travel tips, itineraries, and traveling tips & hacks with guides to help you explore Hawaii. Whether you’re planning a Hawaii vacation to the islands, dreaming of a Hawaiian getaway, or visiting Honolulu, Maui, Kauai, Oahu, or Big Island we’ll help you travel with aloha.

Edge of the Ocean, Stick Figure (w/ permission)
Ukulele and Chill, Coby G (w/ permission)
Talk Story, Hawaiian Style Band (w/ permission)

Chapters

• 1:45 Meet Kahanuola Solatorio
• 2:48 Essential Hawaiian Words and Phrases
• 5:36 Hawaiian Vocabulary
• 17:16 Understanding 'Kanaka' and Directions in Hawaii
• 18:27 Common Hawaiian Words and Their Meanings
• 20:22 Pronouncing Hawaiian Island Names Correctly
• 28:08 Resources for Learning Hawaiian Language

Transcript

Top Hawaiian Words to Know Before Visiting Hawaii with Kahanuola Solatorio

[00:00:00] Bryan Murphy: In this episode, we explore the beautiful Hawaiian language with Kahala Sorio, a Hawaiian language teacher. We'll discuss the best resources to learn more about the culture of Hawaii, common phrases and words to know for your next visit, and tips on learning the Hawaiian language. So stay tuned as we take a little journey into the beautiful language of Hawaii.

[00:00:28] Bryan Murphy: Aloha, and welcome to Hawaii's Best, the podcast Helping Travelers Plan an unforgettable Hawaii vacation with insider tips and featuring local voices. I'm Brian Murphy, a husband dad of three, and certified Hawaii destination expert. Each week I share local insights, travel tips, and up-to-date news Sometimes with.

[00:00:47] Bryan Murphy: Guests across Hawaii and sometimes solo, all to help you plan your next trip to Hawaii.

[00:00:56] Bryan Murphy: I'm a traveler just like you and have visited Hawaii many times now. Over the years, it's been my passion to bring some of the stories of the islands to you to help educate all of us on how to travel to Hawaii. More responsibly. And in today's episode, we're gonna talk a little bit about how to do that and happens to be a replay of a previous episode, episode 63, which happens to be one of our most popular episodes with my friend Kala Sorio, our unofficial cultural practitioner, and.

[00:01:33] Bryan Murphy: God knew. He goes over 26 phrases and words to be familiar with before visiting. So I hope you enjoy this episode in my conversation with Kahan Nula. Today we are joined again with our unofficial cultural practitioner. What's up man? Aloha. Aloha. Emphasis on unofficial. Unofficial. Well, since we, we talked last, we, we did a, um, podcast on Mayday, and since then it's been a little while.

[00:02:06] Bryan Murphy: And how are you doing? I'm doing great.

[00:02:08] Kahanuola Solatorio: Finishing up my school year, so I have two more weeks of school. Everything's going good. Ready for summer. So yeah. Any big plans? Well, I'm gonna be traveling. I'm actually gonna be on the continent for the month of June, going to Vegas and visiting my sister in Phoenix and a couple friends in Washington.

[00:02:26] Kahanuola Solatorio: So looking forward to that. And then maybe I'll make a detour and drive down to

[00:02:30] Bryan Murphy: a detour for this guy to see you

[00:02:31] Kahanuola Solatorio: folks. Yeah.

[00:02:33] Bryan Murphy: Good man. I hope we can meet up in June. We'll be. Back over to the islands, hopefully in the next couple months. So we'll be sure to, uh, we'll probably take all this part out, but people don't care.

[00:02:46] Bryan Murphy: Yeah, leave it in. We'll leave it in. Um, anyways, today we're talking about some words and phrases to know. Some of these you probably. Already know as you're listening to this, you probably heard some of these, and even one of the phrases we're gonna be talking about, we did a whole podcast episode on the word Aloha.

[00:03:05] Bryan Murphy: The official language of Hawaii is the Hawaiian language, and it's really at the heart of the culture of Hawaii. So we wanted to get together again and do, uh, another podcast and talk about some of these phrases that you may have seen, you may have heard, and you might come in contact with. As you visit the island, so continuity, we're gonna kind of, we we're both looking off the same list here.

[00:03:30] Bryan Murphy: We're gonna just take it from the top. And as you're listening to this, we're also gonna link a blog post below where you can go ahead and, and grab all these words and phrases, print 'em out. Don't feel like you have to memorize all 'em. We just want you to kind of be familiar with some of the phrases and words you may come in contact with and some that you just, uh, should know as you're traveling to Hawaii.

[00:03:52] Bryan Murphy: So Kanu, we're gonna kick it off with number one. Aloha, which means exactly,

[00:03:58] Kahanuola Solatorio: aloha means aloha. But, um, normally, I guess the simplest terms would be, hello, goodbye. And also love. So I mean, Aloha is pretty well known throughout the entire world as. At least hello, people, kind, aloha, aloha, you know? Right. Refer to our, our last

[00:04:19] Bryan Murphy: one.

[00:04:20] Bryan Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. We did a deep dive into, into that and having aloha be more of a way of life. So definitely want you to go back and, and check that episode out. All right. Number two, what do we got?

[00:04:31] Kahanuola Solatorio: Another one that's pretty common or pretty well known throughout the world, and that is Mahalo. Mahalo. Yeah. So Mahalo kind of on the other side, when you leave, someone can say Aloha, which means also means goodbye.

[00:04:46] Kahanuola Solatorio: And you can say Mahalo, which means thank you or I appreciate you. And two, Mahalo. Is bigger than just those two things. You know, Mahalo is a whole lifestyle. It's a being appreciative of someone else's time and their efforts and their work. So,

[00:05:00] Bryan Murphy: yeah. And these two words are, are probably the most frequent that people visiting would come in contact with?

[00:05:07] Bryan Murphy: Yeah,

[00:05:07] Kahanuola Solatorio: pretty much. Right? When you get off the airplane, you're gonna hear 30 alohas at the airport, or you know,

[00:05:13] Bryan Murphy: um, you, you're gonna see

[00:05:14] Kahanuola Solatorio: so many signs that say, Aloha and Mahalo. Thanks for coming. So. Two very important words, but again, packed with so much meaning, hard to water it down to, you know, one specific definition.

[00:05:27] Kahanuola Solatorio: But if you were to, it would be aloha. Hello, goodbye love. Mahalo is thank you. Or appreciation. Gotcha. Yeah. Number three. Number three, this is, uh, maybe a new one to many of you. And that's going to be Malini. Malini. Yeah. So that's a, um, common, I don't wanna say mispronunciation, but Yeah. A lot of people think there's a actual a after the the L, but it's a I.

[00:05:54] Kahanuola Solatorio: So it's gonna be Ma hinney. Yeah, there you go. If you're not familiar with that word, it means like a tourist or a visitor. So everyone who comes to Hawaii for the first time or who travels here as a tourist would be considered a malini.

[00:06:11] Bryan Murphy: I've also heard, and a malini could also be someone who has lived on the islands for a short time, or is that, yeah.

[00:06:19] Kahanuola Solatorio: So you probably may know that many people choose to move to Hawaii to live after retiring or whatever. You would still considered a malini for, you know, however many years it takes you to become accustomed to how we are, how we our way of life, and all that kinds of stuff. That brings up our, our next word, which is Right Kaa.

[00:06:40] Kahanuola Solatorio: You wanna try that with me? Kaa. Kaa. Yeah. So Kaa is a native person, someone that's, um, native to Hawaii, someone that knows the culture, knows the land, the people. So yeah, on the opposite spectrum of Malini, you have those two different words, ina and Malini. So I would be considered a Kama ina.

[00:07:00] Bryan Murphy: Yeah. So Ka Ina doesn't necessarily deal with culture, is that correct?

[00:07:05] Bryan Murphy: It's basically like you said, native born, so you're born in Hawaii?

[00:07:09] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. Yeah. So there's actually a lot of, I don't know if you heard this term, KA ina discounts? Mm-hmm. So if you're like, you know, if you're a. Hawaii resident, then you, you'd get a discount at a restaurant or whatever. So yeah, if you're born here and you have a Hawaii state id, then you get that discount.

[00:07:27] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. But it's actually, um, if you break it up, the two words in it is KAA and ina, ina we know it's land. Mm-hmm. And KAA means to bind. So it's pretty much saying that you're being bound to the land or even ka could also mean a, a child. So a child of the land. So many different ways to look at that one word.

[00:07:48] Bryan Murphy: I know we're kind of maybe splitting here a little bit. So can a malini become a Kama ina? Yeah,

[00:07:54] Kahanuola Solatorio: definitely. And I know a lot of examples of people in my life. Mm-hmm. Who, you know, they immerse themself in the culture. They immerse themself in this place. And I think one of the most, the things people love about Hawaii definitely is the aloha spirit.

[00:08:09] Kahanuola Solatorio: And it's hard to embrace it if you weren't taught it or if you weren't born and raised here. Mm-hmm. I don't know. I'm not the the person that decides if you become a malini or you know, Kama after you Malini. But yeah, I think it's pretty much up to you how you embrace the Hawaiian culture and the Hawaii ness of being here.

[00:08:30] Kahanuola Solatorio: You know, that's when you can become a Kama now. Gotcha. It's up to you.

[00:08:34] Bryan Murphy: Yeah, that makes

[00:08:35] Kahanuola Solatorio: sense. Okay. Number five. Yeah, so number five is kind of controversial. Yeah. It's a very interesting word and it is going to be hale. Interesting enough is that people automatically assume hale means Caucasian or white, you know, but hale in the dictionaries actually comes out to foreigner, someone that's, you know, is not from here.

[00:08:57] Bryan Murphy: Mm-hmm. So the controversy around the word, maybe you can give us a little insight on that. I guess over

[00:09:05] Kahanuola Solatorio: time people just maybe automatically attach the word howle to white people or to Caucasian people, but I try and just think of it as just a general foreigner mm-hmm. Term, you know, it's hard because.

[00:09:19] Kahanuola Solatorio: We talked about it a little bit in our first podcast that we did about the troubling history of Hawaii. Mm-hmm. With the foreigner, you know, American businessmen coming to Hawaii, stealing whatever they stole. So that's why Howle, that terminology gets kind of misconstrued and. You know, people are like, there is some kind of racist attitudes in it, you know?

[00:09:41] Kahanuola Solatorio: Mm-hmm. With that word, you kinda have to go back and watch our first podcast to kind of understand it a little bit more if you don't

[00:09:48] Bryan Murphy: yet. Right. Really at the heart of that word is kind of what you already said, and, and sometimes words and phrases kind of take on a different connotation as time goes.

[00:10:02] Bryan Murphy: Yeah. Got it. Okay. Number six. We've already touched on it with comma Ina, but Ina,

[00:10:08] Kahanuola Solatorio: so Ina is very important to the Hawaiian people, and ina just simply means land. But like we kind of went over, land means so much to our people because that's where we get our, you know, our food, our resources. If you're born here, you know, you have a connection to the land that no one can ever take away because.

[00:10:28] Kahanuola Solatorio: We are a part of the land. And this kind of takes me back to another story about our first kalo plant, which is a very, you know, tarot, which is a very, the stable food of our people back in the day. And from what I learned, we all descended from that one tarot plant as Hawaiian people. So. We are definitely connected and binds to the land no matter who you are.

[00:10:52] Kahanuola Solatorio: If you're born here and if you're Hawaiian especially, then you have that connection to the land that is PA secure. It's always gonna be there for you. So it's a cool thing. Way to think about it.

[00:11:03] Bryan Murphy: That's probably one of the most important takeaways traveling into Hawaii is the connection that Hawaiian people have to the land.

[00:11:13] Bryan Murphy: And that's why you probably hear us say over and over again different ways that if you are going. Choose to visit Hawaii. How you can malama on it. Take care of the land and be a part Yeah. Of that because the land is so important and and sacred.

[00:11:31] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. I think just a couple things to remember is, you know, when you go somewhere, when you go to the beach, make sure you take your rubbish with, you.

[00:11:39] Kahanuola Solatorio: Take, you know, leave something better than. When you got there. Makes sense.

[00:11:45] Bryan Murphy: You got number seven.

[00:11:46] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yep. So number seven, you have vi. VI means water. Try that with me. Vi. Vi. Yeah. And then you see we use that V sound for that. Mm-hmm. But you can also use Y with a W. But mostly what I hear is VI and Hawaii, you know, we're surrounded by water, we're surrounded by ocean for miles and miles, so we're definitely water people.

[00:12:08] Kahanuola Solatorio: We have many chants and songs dedicated specifically to water. Our source of water where water comes from. And if you look at the Hawaiian word for valuable or for rich, it's gonna be so pretty much water. Water is the word for valuable. So you see how much we price or we hold water in. And how much we respect it.

[00:12:29] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah, yeah. All right, number eight. Number eight's very important because pretty much why many people come to Hawaii is our Kaha Kai. You wanna try that? Kaha kai.

[00:12:40] Bryan Murphy: Kaha kai.

[00:12:41] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. So kaha kai means beach if you break it down, Kai actually just means like ocean or sea. Like we were talking earlier, when you go to the Kahaka, definitely enjoy the experience, but leave the beach better than how you, how you arrived.

[00:12:58] Bryan Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. So an example of that would be to obviously take out what you bring in. Yeah. And if you see something on the way out, take it out with you.

[00:13:08] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. And I guess while we're there, what is your favorite beach? I can't tell you. Is it a secret? White Plains? Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So mines is W Manolo right after Ma Cap.

[00:13:20] Kahanuola Solatorio: So on the eastern side. Yeah. It's the best. Or maybe that's the secret. Yeah. Yeah, our next word, we kind of touched on it when we talked about ina, but malama. You wanna try that Malama? Yeah. So malama is to take care. Just take care of not only your surroundings, but take care of yourself. Take care of your family.

[00:13:43] Kahanuola Solatorio: That's why we always say malama ina. Malama, AKA malama your mama. That's another thing that I always say, take care of your mother. That sounds like going around during mom's day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So many things that we can malama and take care of. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Number 10, we have, this is one of my favorite words.

[00:14:03] Kahanuola Solatorio: Our favorite, I was gonna say, yeah. Our favorite. Yeah. And that's going to be Ono Ono. Ono. Yeah. So this one has a oka at the beginning of the word, and that's just like, um, an accent. So when you say the word, you're gonna have kind of stress the, the o So you're gonna go, oh no. Oh, no. So, oh, no. Means delicious.

[00:14:23] Kahanuola Solatorio: Good. You know, when you eat something and you really like it, you can say, Ooh, so Ono, you know, if you're in Hawaii and you're at a restaurant and you go, oh no, they're gonna be like, oh, how you know that word? You know, that kind of stuff. So, yeah. Moving onto our next one. You have Kapu. Kapu. Yeah. So kapu means sacred, or it literally is a ized word, version of taboo.

[00:14:45] Kahanuola Solatorio: Mm. So couple means sacred. So if you ever see a sign. Out in the in nature or wherever you're going and that's this ka, just know that it means you cannot enter that space. And that could be for many reasons. One being it could be dangerous. Another means meaning it could be sacred. You know, there could be bones una una there that you shouldn't be going around or just, it's just coupled.

[00:15:11] Kahanuola Solatorio: Mm-hmm. It's just sacred. So those are some of the, the reasonings behind it.

[00:15:15] Bryan Murphy: Like I mentioned, we're gonna have a blog that we're gonna link to where you can get all these words, you can follow both of us on our Instagram accounts. We'll link that to the blog post. We're, you know, we'll add some more phrases and some other terms.

[00:15:30] Bryan Murphy: We really want dive deep into the ones that we just touch. And then right now we kind of do, we wanna do this like lightning round of some other common. Words or phrases that you might see, and probably we'll see, especially when you first step off the plane. If you're coming to Hawaii for the very first time and you look towards the restroom after that, you know, six hour flight and you're gonna see what is a.

[00:15:56] Bryan Murphy: Cane. What is that? Yeah.

[00:15:57] Kahanuola Solatorio: What's a cane?

[00:15:58] Bryan Murphy: Yeah,

[00:15:59] Kahanuola Solatorio: so, so that's exactly it. When you come to Hawaii and you see two signs, one saying kain and one saying hin, just know that they're very important words. Right. Okay. So the first one is, it would actually be pronounced Kane. Kane, yeah. So Kane means male or any like a man.

[00:16:16] Kahanuola Solatorio: So if you. Our male used that bathroom that says Kane, and then the anoth, the other one is Waine. Waine. Yep. So wahine means female or woman.

[00:16:26] Bryan Murphy: Right. And then probably sandwich in between. I, I'm just utilizing this bathroom illustration kind of sandwich in between you probably will see Ohana.

[00:16:34] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah.

[00:16:35] Bryan Murphy: So Ohana

[00:16:36] Kahanuola Solatorio: means family and you, I mean, we all watch Lilo and Stitch hopefully.

[00:16:39] Kahanuola Solatorio: So we all should know what family means. Yeah. So Ohana means family. And then if you. There's a Kiki probably on the sign. Um, then that's going to be a child.

[00:16:49] Bryan Murphy: Also, you may hear the word

[00:16:51] Kahanuola Solatorio: kanaka. Yeah.

[00:16:53] Bryan Murphy: Which means

[00:16:54] Kahanuola Solatorio: kanaka means like a just a human or a person. Sometimes it can be translated to like mankind or like a man, but that's where it gets kinda blurred lines because mm-hmm.

[00:17:05] Kahanuola Solatorio: Kanaka, I would just consider it as a human, since Kane is a man. Yeah.

[00:17:09] Bryan Murphy: Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. All right, moving on. Maybe you're gonna be asking for directions. The word for towards the C would be,

[00:17:19] Kahanuola Solatorio: so it's funny in Hawaii, like when you ask for directions, it's a little bit different. You know, it's not like, turn left on, blah, blah, blah.

[00:17:26] Kahanuola Solatorio: Turn right on that. Right? We use these two very general terms, and the first one is Mackay.

[00:17:33] Bryan Murphy: Mackay,

[00:17:33] Kahanuola Solatorio: which means towards the C or C word. So if you wanted to say like, you know, where is a beach? You can say, oh, just go mackay of go seaward from this location, you know? And then the other one would be Malka.

[00:17:47] Kahanuola Solatorio: Malka. Yeah. So Malka means towards like Mountain Word or towards the mountain. So those are pretty much our. Two senses of direction. We don't have north, so East West we have Mountain or Makay and Malka. Yeah. And we just get it. It's easy, you know, we just get it. Yeah. That's

[00:18:02] Bryan Murphy: it. You figure it out.

[00:18:03] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. Next we have coa.

[00:18:05] Kahanuola Solatorio: Try that with me. Coa. Coa. Okay. So COA means to help and you know, KU just help whoever you can. The old lady who is carrying her groceries or help, you know, a friend that has to move, you know, that's, cocoa is a word that every can use. You don't have to only be in Hawaii. You can also always cocoa anyone wherever you go.

[00:18:26] Bryan Murphy: And then a word that we unpacked a few weeks ago. Yeah. From the time of this recording,

[00:18:30] Kahanuola Solatorio: Mayday Le Day is, um, our next door is Lei. Yeah. And Lei. Again, it's uh, hard to translate lei because lei can be so all sorts of things, but if you break it down, it pretty much just means garland. Something you wear on your body around your neck would be considered a lei.

[00:18:46] Kahanuola Solatorio: I would highly recommend tuning into that podcast a couple weeks ago. 'cause, you know, kind of just unpacks what lei, what lei are, or the importance of the mm-hmm. Yeah. So our next word is hale, and hale means house. So kind of important because you, again, another word that you can use wherever you're from.

[00:19:05] Kahanuola Solatorio: You know, not only when you come to Hawaii, you can malama your hale, take care of your house, or you know, that kind of thing, right? We can go into another one and that's gonna be, you wanna try that? Ho so means hotel, you know, and you can, it's kind of another, um, Hawaiian nice word, uh, version of hotel. So, yeah.

[00:19:25] Kahanuola Solatorio: So many people are gonna be staying at Ale. Or if you're at a Airbnb then Ale. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Most of your hotels or your houses come with this and you know, I hear this on, on some shows and another word that kind of is popular, maybe Adopted. Yeah, adopted. Yeah. And that's Lanai. Lanai. So Lanai is your patio or like a balcony.

[00:19:49] Kahanuola Solatorio: So you know, many hotels. People like to just sit on the night, look at the ocean, you know? Mm-hmm. Just enjoy the Hawaiian breeze. So

[00:19:58] Bryan Murphy: yeah.

[00:19:58] Kahanuola Solatorio: La

[00:19:59] Bryan Murphy: All right. So right here we're gonna do a little, little pivot. Kanu doesn't know this is coming. I'm scared, but I think it would be important to do justice to the islands and how to pronounce each island correctly.

[00:20:15] Bryan Murphy: Got it. Because when you look at the spelling. Lan and then you see the island that's spelled Yeah. The same way but pronounced differently. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe, maybe starting with, uh, big Island.

[00:20:28] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. You know, big Island has also always been known to me when I was growing up as Big Island. Mm-hmm. Just 'cause it, you know, it's the biggest out of the eight islands, but the real name or the main name of that island is Hawaii.

[00:20:42] Kahanuola Solatorio: So, Hawaii Island, Hawaii. Yeah. You can, you know, people say it like with a V Hawaii or people even say Hawaii, either or works. And even my mom, she goes Hawaii. So it's, there's many different pronunciations. Mm-hmm. And I'm not saying which one is right or wrong, but the way I would say it is Hawaii. Hawaii.

[00:21:01] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. Good job. Okay. Moving to the next island would be Maui. Maui, and this is a weird one because people go Maui or you know, Maui. Maui. So kind of more buting down on the, on the vows. Maui. Maui,

[00:21:17] Bryan Murphy: okay.

[00:21:18] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah, yeah. Good. The longest one is probably the hardest to pronounce, is Kajo. Lave, KA. Kave. Yeah. And I, I hear so many weird pronunciations of this ka kave.

[00:21:32] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. Yeah. Kavi, you know, so Kave Kave, and this is one of the islands that you cannot go to unless you're, you're doing like a cleanup kind of thing with them. So.

[00:21:45] Bryan Murphy: It was probably a year or two ago now, there was a pretty big fire. Mm-hmm. On the island. Yeah. And I know there's been efforts in a restoration project too there.

[00:21:56] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. So for years and years they've been working on restoring tu. It's original, you know, way, but you know, it was bombed earlier by America, just as it was used as bombing. Practice or targets. So yeah. That's why one of the things, you gotta watch where you're going. Mm-hmm. 'cause there's still live bombs that crazy.

[00:22:19] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. Are in the ground, so, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's crazy. I haven't been there, but hopefully one day I can go. Yeah.

[00:22:24] Bryan Murphy: Okay. When you land. Maui, you're driving from the airport, you got West Maui Mountains. Mm-hmm. On one side, halala on the other. And you, so you're driving, you're like, oh, this is why it's called the valley aisle.

[00:22:37] Bryan Murphy: Yeah. And you're seeing these three other islands too. Yeah. So, um, yeah, this is one of 'em. And then there's the other two are.

[00:22:45] Kahanuola Solatorio: So the one we were talking about earlier, Lana, la, Lana. Yeah. So Lana actually has a kako, or over the first A, which is, it's just a line over the vowels and that just tells you to draw out the vowel sound.

[00:22:58] Kahanuola Solatorio: So Lana. Lana, yeah. So different from Lana. Yeah. But Lana. And then the other one would be Moloka. Moloka. Moloka. And this is kind of tricky because even the natives of Molokai. Have different ways of pronouncing it. Some say moloka without the okina. Mm. Some just say moloka. I dunno. I've always known it as moloka, so that's what I call it as, and that's, that's my actual favorite island.

[00:23:22] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. Out of the eight. Yeah, because my, my dad was born there. Oh, okay. I have family there. You know, I've ties there. It's called the friendly aisle for a reason. 'cause the people are just so, so nice, so family oriented, so you know, they become your friends quickly. So yeah. Love that island. That's awesome.

[00:23:39] Kahanuola Solatorio: Moving on to the island that I'm on right now. Oahu. Oahu. Yeah. And this one's interesting too. A lot of people pronounce it with a W. They go Oahu. Oahu. But just know that there's a okina between the O and the A. So that shows it's a. You know, so just make sure you pronounce that ok. Very strongly. Or ahu, the last two, ISI one.

[00:24:03] Kahanuola Solatorio: Ua, K. Yeah. And some people call it ua, even some of the natives. So it depends. I, I call it ua. And then the last one is ni. Yeah, so Niha is the other island that you cannot just go and visit. It's a couple, it's Sacred Island. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. So those are the eight islands. And I think one of the things to keep in mind too, when you're saying Hawaiian words is just know where the okina are.

[00:24:28] Kahanuola Solatorio: Mm-hmm. And the Kos, all those dark criticals. 'cause it helps you to, you know, get the word correct. If you keep that in mind, then you'll know what you're saying or how to say it a little bit better. Gotcha.

[00:24:38] Bryan Murphy: All right. Any island you visit, you want to be. Mindful of picking this up, and that is,

[00:24:45] Kahanuola Solatorio: yeah, so Aala, AALA, AALA.

[00:24:48] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. Aala means trash. So every time you. You leave some place or make sure you pick up your aala. And you know, Hawaii has been very good in the past couple years about, you know, making laws, banning plastic, banning plastic bags, styrofoam, all that stuff. So we're very conscious of our impact on the earth.

[00:25:10] Kahanuola Solatorio: So,

[00:25:11] Bryan Murphy: yeah. Probably anyone who's wants to visit Hawaii is hoping to see one of these, and that's what

[00:25:18] Kahanuola Solatorio: a nu, so ANU is a turtle, a Hawaiian green sea turtle. So yeah, if you're lucky, you can come across a beautiful Nu either at the beach nesting or in the water, and I've luck. I was lucky enough to see them.

[00:25:32] Kahanuola Solatorio: Many whole new throughout my life. But don't touch 'em. Yeah. Like, just don't go near them. That's the thing. Right. They're couple, they're sacred. Just don't mess with them. You, you can admire them from afar.

[00:25:43] Bryan Murphy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Please don't be that person. Yeah. That person that, that one. Story on Instagram.

[00:25:52] Bryan Murphy: Yeah, I saw, you know, it goes viral and, and not a good way. Yeah. And it's, it's not,

[00:25:57] Kahanuola Solatorio: you get fined, you know, so

[00:25:59] Bryan Murphy: yeah.

[00:25:59] Kahanuola Solatorio: Just mind your, mind, your space. Six feet, no, actually more than six feet. No, it's more than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:26:06] Bryan Murphy: That, that's Coronavirus, bro. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot. Okay, so. This is probably my favorite.

[00:26:16] Bryan Murphy: Yep. P

[00:26:17] Kahanuola Solatorio: Hana.

[00:26:17] Bryan Murphy: P Hana.

[00:26:18] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. So P actually means like done or finished, and Hana means work when you're done with work and you just wanna go home and relax and you know, spend time with your family. Open up a cold one. We call that Paul Hana. What's that mean? Call that? Oh, I don't kidding. Like, uh, juice or water, you know, that kind of stuff.

[00:26:37] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah. So Paul Hana. Yeah. I gotta wait a little bit. So

[00:26:41] Bryan Murphy: it's five o'clock somewhere, right?

[00:26:43] Kahanuola Solatorio: Yeah, exactly. I like the words there's lit. Really? Very random. So

[00:26:48] Bryan Murphy: super

[00:26:48] Kahanuola Solatorio: random.

[00:26:49] Bryan Murphy: Yeah. But these are, I think, a lot of terms that you'll come in contact with. Mm-hmm. As you're. In Hawaii, or even as you're dreaming and maybe researching about Hawaii, you'll probably come across a lot of these words and having a, just an understanding of these words and phrases is so culturally important to Yeah.

[00:27:11] Bryan Murphy: Where you're traveling and, yeah. You're gonna have a great time and you're gonna do all the things that you're going to do in a responsible way. But everything that we do at Hawaii's best, we wanna make sure that we draw back to the Hawaiian culture the best as we can. So,

[00:27:28] Kahanuola Solatorio: mm-hmm. Thank you so much. Yeah.

[00:27:31] Kahanuola Solatorio: It's very important and you know, sometimes overlooked. Yeah. On part of traveling, but. Try your best to immerse yourself in the language, the culture, everything. So yeah. Yeah. Good intentions maybe. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, absolutely. We actually have a very convenient website and that is gonna be.com.

[00:27:51] Kahanuola Solatorio: So W-E-H-E-W-E-H e.com. And that's not our Hawaiian language dictionary. So everything from our book dictionary is online as well. So if you ever want to look up a word or you're like, come across a word that you think is very beautiful, just go to je.com and you can look them up right there.

[00:28:09] Bryan Murphy: And maybe just kind of on that same topic, if there's anybody who is interested in maybe.

[00:28:15] Bryan Murphy: Taking steps further towards learning about Hawaiian language, what would you recommend?

[00:28:20] Kahanuola Solatorio: So there's many resources for you to to use. One thing that I really enjoy are the apps Duolingo. There's a Hawaiian language. Mm-hmm. Version of Duolingo. And also drops, which helps you with your vocabulary, Hawaiian vocabulary.

[00:28:35] Kahanuola Solatorio: So that's a good one. Also, you can follow my channel. We do daily Hawaiian language lessons and we have a online Google Classroom resource that you can tap into so many resources that are convenient and accessible online. So

[00:28:50] Bryan Murphy: yeah, absolutely. From following your page and utilizing personally, Duolingo has been good for, for me, it's not sponsored by the podcast or anything like that, so that's just what I.

[00:29:03] Bryan Murphy: Personal use, but there's a lot of Yeah. Great resources out there. So be sure to, to check that out and we'll link all that and all that good stuff. So Kahani, our unofficial cultural practitioner. Thank you so much again. No worries. Thank you, uh, for your time and. Looking forward to hanging out again, and thank you so much for listening to this podcast and if you found it valuable, go ahead and leave a rating review below.

[00:29:28] Bryan Murphy: That helps out both myself and Coni and being able to spread this message. So thank you so much and until next time, be well. Aloha

[00:29:42] Bryan Murphy: Mahala for listening to this episode of Hawaii's Best. To stay up to date on future episodes, hit follow on your podcast app. Hawaii's Best is a production of Shore Break media group with editing by easy podcast solutions and music courtesy of our friends stick figure.