The difference between action words and their results

This monthʻs handout inspiration was brought up by Kahea Faria. She wanted to help people learning Hawaiian to understand there is a difference between action words and their results in a variety of context.

Hawaiian is very different than English and at times it is hard for English speakers to separate their English from learning Hawaiian. Many times it is tempting to just directly translate what you would say in English into Hawaiian, but that is something to avoid. When we directly translate, we lose the beauty of the language because we lose the thought behind it.

We hope this handout helps you to see the context of when to use these words and phrases. Each phrase on the left is related to the one on the right, but youʻll see that each word is different because on the left side weʻre looking at actions and on the right side we are looking at the result of those actions/the state of being of the objects.