Touch a place name and hear native speaker Ka‘upena Wong pronounce it on your iPhone. Ka‘upena is a National Endowment for the Arts national heritage fellowship winner celebrating artistic excellence and cultural authenticity and diversity.

Over one hundred-sixty place and street names are presented along with proper Hawaiian diacritics and the correct audio pronunciation when touched.

Hawai‘i is one of the few states with such linguistic distinction. As a first time visitor you might find yourself tripping over pronunciation of Hawaiian place names. (Actually, even network media news journalists and sport announcers could use a little help from this iPhone app.)

Learning to pronounce Hawaiian streets and places correctly will prevent you from being misunderstood and help perpetuate Hawaiian culture.

Today, linguists describe Hawaiian as one of the most perfect languages (one sound, one symbol). The Hawaiian language has the shortest alphabet in the world.  There are only twelve letters -- less than half the number in English. Five of these are the old familiar vowels : a ,e,i,o,u.  Seven are consonants: h,k,l,m,n,p,w.  

Add to the consonants and the vowels two diacritics: the macron (kahakō) and the ‘okina. These pronunciation markings are essential if you are going to write and read the language.  

Consonants:

Hawaiian consonants sound the same in English. Occasionally w is sounded as a v.  

W:
- When the w follows the vowels o or u the standard w sound is pronounced
- When the w follows an e or i, it gives way to a v-sound
- If the w follows the a-vowel, or if the w is the first letter in the word it may be pronounced either with a w-like or v-like sound depending on preference.

Vowels:

A is "uh" as in above or "ah" as in father (unstressed)
E is "eh" as in bed (soft) or "ay" as in they (stressed)
I is "ee" as in police
O is "oh" as in vote
U is "oo" as in true

Generally, good advice for the newcomer is to sound every letter of Hawaiian individually.  Chances are if you see two of the same vowels in a row, like “ii” or “aa” an ‘okina belongs between them.

The special vowel pairs, (ae,ai,ao,au,ei,eu,oi,ou), however, are pronounced with a gliding lilt as one syllable with the first vowel receiving the stress. These vowel pairs, though, should not be as closely joined in pronunciation as the vowel pairs blended together in English as diphthongs. Vowel pairs always require stress, or emphasis. In some words the vowel sounds are held for a longer duration than those basic vowel sounds. These are shown in Hawaiian spelling by a macron over the letter. That vowel or syllable has more emphasis.

The other pronunciation mark besides the macron is the ‘okina. It is equally critical to proper pronunciation.

The ‘okina (also known as an ‘uina ) is a glottal stop.  It is not an apostrophe although sometimes represented by one. Actually the correct character is represented as a single open quotation mark ‘. In speech the ‘okina is represented by cutting off all sound for an instant, as in the English expression "oh-oh." There is however, no general similar usage of the ‘okina in English. Many Hawaiian words have more than one ‘okina, even at the beginning of a word.

Compound words in Hawaiian abound and require a basic knowledge of their internal root words in order to place accents accurately. The ‘okina is critical as such.

Break Hawaiian words into syllables and find them easier to say. Hawaiian syllables never contain more than one consonant h, k,l,m,n,p,w. The word hula is divided hu-la not hul-a.

Whenever you see a consonant, be alerted that it's usually the beginning of a separately pronounced syllable.

To make things even easier, each syllable must end with a vowel -- a,e,i,o,u.  Every word in Hawaiian always ends with a vowel. Also, a single vowel can stand alone as a syllable.

Try to see all long words by short syllables, saying each syllable individually and sounding every letter.

Pronunciation rules for Hawaiian are simple but important. By becoming familiar with them you will soon find how surprisingly easy it is to say most Hawaiian words correctly and naturally. Download "Speak Hawaiian Place Names" for your iPhone today!

Coconut Info also offers a Desktop version... Click Hawaiian® Places