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Vowel Pairs Whose Sounds Merge

Like every other language, Hawaiian has vowel pairs whose sounds naturally “smooth” into each other. They’re similar to Italian or English diphthongs. The degree to which the two sounds are merged in Hawaiian is officially less than occurs in English, but most Hawaiian people I’ve talked with merge them fully. Vowel-pair pronunciation is approximately:

ae often smoothed to “eye” as in “eyeful” or “i” in “ice.” It’s the English long-i sound.

ai often smoothed as for “ae,” above.

ao often smoothed to sound like “ow” in “cow.”

au often smoothed to “ow” in “cow”, too.

ei sometimes smoothed to “ay” as in “day.” It’s the English long-a sound.

eu smooth the sounds together a little, like “ayoo.”

oi usually like “oi” in “oil”—in other words, just what you’re used to.

Syllables

Every Hawaiian syllable ends in a vowel sound. A Hawaiian syllable never contains more than one consonant. That means every consonant goes with the vowel that follows it. Every vowel not preceded by a consonant stands alone when you break a written word into syllables (you may smooth some of them together when you speak). For example: