Essential English phrases

Hello, goodbye, love, compassion — all of them. It is not a tourism slogan: the 'Aloha Spirit' is written into Hawaiʻi state law as a value public officials are directed to consider. Using it casually is fine; using it sarcastically is not.

Thank you. Printed on rubbish bins across the islands, which is why newcomers occasionally arrive believing it means 'trash'. It does not.

To sit and chat at length, without an agenda. It is the local social mode, and treating a conversation as a transaction to be completed efficiently reads as rude here in a way it does not on the mainland.

A foreigner, in practice usually a white person. Mostly descriptive and used without heat; occasionally not. Newcomers hear it as an insult more often than it is meant as one, but the tone tells you which it is.

Toward the mountains / toward the sea. This is how directions are actually given on Oʻahu — nobody says north or south. Paired with 'Diamond Head' and 'ʻEwa' for the other axis, it is the island's entire coordinate system.

Literally 'child of the land'; in practice a Hawaiʻi resident. A 'kamaʻāina rate' is a resident discount on hotels, attractions, tours and inter-island flights, evidenced with a Hawaiʻi driver licence or state ID. It is worth real money and almost nobody tells you to ask.

The universal Pidgin placeholder — thing, whatsit, you-know-what, that person. Fluent speakers use it as a verb, a noun and an adjective, and the meaning comes entirely from context.

Thumb and little finger extended, waggled. Thanks, all good, no worries. You will receive one after letting a car merge, and returning it is the expected courtesy.

Flip-flops, and the default footwear. The associated rule matters more: shoes come off before you enter a home, always. The pile of slippers at a front door is how you know someone is in.

Family, extended well beyond blood. It is also a Honolulu zoning term — an 'ʻohana unit' is a legally permitted second dwelling on a residential lot, and a large share of the island's rental stock is one.

Children and elders. Both appear in official signage and government programme names — keiki fares on TheBus, kūpuna care services — so these are administrative vocabulary here, not just affectionate ones.

'Work finished' — the after-work drink, and the general concept of clocking off. 'Pau' alone means done or finished and is used constantly: pau eating, pau for the day.

So good it broke your mouth — the highest compliment for food. 'Grinds' is the food itself; 'ono' means delicious. All three are Pidgin, which the US Census has counted as a distinct language spoken at home since 2015.