Spoken Hawaiian [Paperback]

Samuel H. Elbert (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English

Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press (August 1, 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870222163
• ISBN-13: 978-0870222160
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #633,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Hawaiian

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn Hawaiian without sounding like Forrest Gump, May 14, 2004

By 

Carol A. Buckley (Warwick, RI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spoken Hawaiian (Paperback)

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 back, and serious students need to follow the current cultural wave.

Pro linguists, too, will probably want to see what Hokulani Cleeland has to say, and it's a rich source of knowledge. But in my opinion, the graphical layout of Olelo Oiwi is heinous. Most of the (vast) info in it is probably better presented conversationally by a standup instructor; and for all I know, that's how it's used in classrooms in Hawaii. Trust me that you need to be devoted to the language, or languages in general, to plow through the notes, or to determine what you are supposed to be doing with the oddly formatted practices and drills in Olelo Oiwi.

Spoken Hawaiian, by contrast, is a breeze to use for high-school age and up. It builds grammar and vocabulary slowly, without troubling the learner's mind with too much detail and variation, and ends with several samples of "real" written Hawaiian, taken from documents from the 1800's. (This book was written before the current resurgence of native speakers.) If you study with Spoken Hawaiian and follow through with it to these documents, I think you'll feel very happy with what you've accomplished; and you'll be well prepared to partake of the more up-to-date sources.

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spoken Hawaiian is the definitive book on Hawai'ian grammar, July 12, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Spoken Hawaiian (Paperback)

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

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars review of SPOKEN HAWAIIAN by Elbert, January 30, 2010

By 

Edmund W. Peaslee Jr. "OLD CHINA HAND" (PLANO,TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spoken Hawaiian (Paperback)

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