The Kaʻi Determiners #3: Kekahi

How to say “Another” in Hawaiian — Video Lesson 0603V

Introduction

Aloha ʻoukou! This is the third in the set of videos about the kaʻi (articles which precede content words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives).

Watch The Video Lesson

This video is 14 minutes long and will teach you the kaʻi “kekahi” (meaning “a/an” or “another”). There are only two new vocabulary words in this video (ʻae meaning “yes” and ʻaʻole meaning “no”), and there is a fun shopping game at the end to help you remember the use of the word kekahi.

Level Check

If you have arrived here without first seeing the two preceeding videos, it would be best to see them now. Here are the links:

• 0601V The Kaʻi Determiners #1: He
• 0602V The Kaʻi Determiners #2: Ka, Ke

The Meaning of “Kekahi”

“Kekahi” means “a/an” the first time it is used, and “another” or “the other one” the second time it’s used to refer to the same thing. In the table below are some examples comparing the kaʻi you already know (he, ka, and ke) with kekahi.

Why Both “He” and “Kekahi”?

Of course you may be wondering why we would have both “he” and “kekahi” available to mean “a” or “an” in Hawaiian. The reason, in part, is that Hawaiian language generally dislikes the use of “he” inside of pepeke phrases. It’s fine enough to use “he” to start a new sentence or a new pepeke phrase within a sentence, but it’s relatively rare to see it inside a pepeke. Therefore, we use “kekahi” instead, since it has no such restrictions.

You will learn about pepeke phrase patterns in a coming lesson.

Further Exploration: “Kahi” Is Short For “Kekahi”

You may be familiar with the use of the word “one” to mean “a” or “an” in Hawaiian Creole English (also known as Hawaiian Pidgin English). For example, “Hō! I spok one nice car ova dea!” (I see a nice car over there) or “Hey brah, she one akamai lede” (Hey man, she’s an intelligent lady). The word “one” is straight from the Hawaiian kaʻi “kekahi”, albeit in shortened form. The shortened familiar form is “kahi” and you will both see it written and hear it spoken in casual conversation.

Below are some quick comparisons of kahi versus kekahi.

Extra Resource: Grammar Lesson PDF

There is a three-page grammar lesson and practice worksheet available for this topic. Use the link below to download it.

Next Steps

After you are done watching the video, you will be able to move on to the next one: 0604V Memeʻa Content Words. You will learn about a new class of words which include the equivalents of common nouns, adjectives, and verbs in English. But do not fear: we will not be having any deep English language lessons here, and you don’t even have to know what an adjective is in English to understand the coming lesson! Maikaʻi!

maikaʻi nō!
(really great!)
– Kaliko

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