Duolingo Hawaiian!
So if you didn’t know, Duolingo release a Hawaiian course =D. I’ll be posting up the notes as I go along. Here are the first set of notes, on Determiners. The course is still in beta so... there’s that.
"Ka", "Ke" and "Nā" are determiners that all mean "the". Use "Ke" when the noun that follows begins with the letters K, E, A, or O. Use "Ka" with almost all others! Warning: there will be exceptions (don't worry, we'll let you know which ones they are!).
"Nā" is only used to say "the" when the noun is plural.
Certain words like "wahine" are pronounced with a longer "ā" when plural and hence spelled with a kahakō (macron), "wāhine".
"Kēlā" and "Kēnā" both mean "that". The difference is "Kēlā" refers to "that" which is AWAY from the listener and ʻKēnā" refers to "that" which is NEAR the listener. Cultural note of interest: Hawaiians are keenly aware of space and time.
