Hawaii slang: regional words, sayings, and how locals talk.
This page collects regional vocabulary from Hawaii: slang you'll hear in conversation, sayings that travel through families, and pronunciations that mark a person as a local. Pick a city to narrow the list, or keep "All cities" to see the full Hawaii picture.
21 words
Extremely tasty.
To chat informally, swap stories.
Flip-flops (Hawaiian Pidgin pronunciation).
Hawaiian Pidgin: back when one was a child.
A Hawaiian comfort plate of rice topped with a hamburger patty, brown gravy, and a fried egg.
A grilled slice of Spam pressed onto a brick of rice and belted with nori, the Hawaiian onigiri.
A Hawaiian to-go meal of two scoops white rice, one scoop mac salad, and an entree.
Hawaii speaks Hawaiian Pidgin — properly Hawaii Creole English — a full creole language born in the islands' plantation era from Hawaiian, English, Portuguese, Cantonese, Japanese, and Filipino languages. "Pau" means finished, "grindz" is food, "da kine" is the all-purpose placeholder word, "shaka" is the hang-loose gesture and greeting, and "talk story" means to chat. Standard Hawaiian words like "mahalo" (thank you) and "keiki" (child) live alongside it. Pidgin is a real language with its own grammar, not broken English.
Hawaiian Pidgin, or Hawaii Creole English, is a creole language that developed on Hawaii's plantations from Hawaiian, English, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino. It has its own grammar and vocabulary — "pau" (done), "grindz" (food), "da kine" (whatchamacallit), "talk story" (chat).
"Da kine" is Pidgin's all-purpose placeholder, standing in for any word the speaker does not say outright — a thing, a person, an action. Listeners fill in the meaning from context, like "whatchamacallit" doing far more work.
"Pau" (rhymes with "cow") means finished, done, or over — "I'm pau", "pau hana" (after work). It comes from Hawaiian and is used constantly in island English.
