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a: like “ah” in “aha.”

e: like “ay” in “day.”

i: like “ee” as in “whee!”

o: like “o” in “go.”

u: like “oo” in “food” (or “u” in “rude”).

Notice that that means that when you see two or more of the same letter in a row, you pronounce each of them separately:

“Kapaa” is Ka-pa-a.

“Kokee” is Ko-ke-e.

“Iiwi” is I-i-wi.

“Hoolulu” is Ho-o-lu-lu.

“Puu” is Pu-u.

That seems too simple, and it is. If you tried to pronounce every vowel, speaking Hawaiian would turn into a nightmare. You wouldn’t live long enough to pronounce some words. Fortunately, several pairs of vowels often—but not always—form merged sounds.

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 on Kauai merge them fully. Vowel-pair pronunciation is approximately: