An Old One For The Gram
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Thursday July 18th
I watched old videos today of when I first started sharing on social media about our Hawaiian Language journey *cue the cringe*.
It was hard to watch, but also long enough ago where I felt like I could say, "aww look at that young girl and all the things she thought she knew."
While I skipped though through most of the videos the general consensus was the same:
- My intonation was English
- I had a hard time getting through a series of thoughts in a row
- I was directly translating from English to Hawaiian
It was good for me to watch those videos. I saw that there was improvement, but I was alsossaw that I still struggle with the same things today. I still need to fine tune my intonation, I stumble on telling long stories, and when I have to explain new things I am tempted to explain from an English perspective.
It is disappointing to see that even after 8 years of learning Hawaiian I am not where I want to be. In some ways I am progressing so slowly compared to how quickly I was progressing the first couple of years. The answer seems pretty obvious to me though namely; I'm not studying as much as I did in the beginning. Why? Time.
When we first started learning I only had one child and virtually no business to run. We were living in a studio apartment getting scholarship money for school and living expenses and governmental assistance. Weren't those the good ol days?! Now we have more bills than ever to pay and not enough time to burn off the stress calories we are constantly consuming.
Okay that's enough complaining there. Even though life is stressful, it is very good - there's just no time for quality study time anymore. I bet you've felt the same way.
Well, I am sad to say I don't have any advice other than: pick people you see every day in your life and promise to only speak Hawaiian to them for the next 10 years with the exception of holidays.
On another note, watching old videos made me think about all the trolls I used to get back in the beginning of Kaulumaika. It made me realize that there's some kind of troll progression when people share their thoughts publicly....
I was going to share it with all of you, but I think that's all I have time for tonight. I'll share it in the near future!
Keep speaking Hawaiian.
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