Each definition includes a pronunciation and an example.

The app provides an alphabetized list of 175 words that users may “tap” to get a definition. Local comedian and radio personality Lanai Tabura created the app to translate some of the popular Pidgin words and phrases locals grew up saying. In fact, the app has already been downloaded by people from around the world – Japan, Germany and Cuba, to name a few.

Download the Pidgin 101 app to your iPhone or Android for 99-cents, and be befuddled no more! It’ll be your hand-held interpreter when exploring the islands. Now with even more help from the tech gods, Hawaii visitors can look up Pidgin words that once baffled them. Most tourists visiting a new place use their smart phones to get around. Pidgin 101 creator Lanai Tabura helps clear up any language barriers for those not from here. An actor made a very strange reference to the language: “Eh! You speak bird?” That has got to be the weirdest question in Hollywood. Make sense? Or as most locals might ask, You get em or what? And don’t be confused by one of Hawaii 5-0’s episodes from last season. And today that imaginary bag is still around, except now the words are all jumbled up and have become what most locals use today when speaking – Pidgin English. So think of it as an imaginary bag of words that the Hawaiians, Chinese, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, Portuguese (the list goes on) contributed to over time. But good try! It’s Pidgin English you’re hearing, which comes from various ethnic groups that have worked on Hawaii’s plantations in the 1800s. Wait, what did he just say? I have to hum with the bugs, or I will lose my money?Īs good as that guess is, it’s nowhere near what’s being said. That’s exactly the question many people who aren’t from around here find themselves asking when they come to Hawaii. Make mo’ humbug fo’ me! Ah, lose money ladat. Ho, brah! Why you when make ladat for? You stey making anykine.

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Hawaiian pidgin 101