Monday, April 27, 2009

Canoes, Paddles, and MLI Students! Oh my!

Alo-o-o-oha! We just got back from another one of our field trips! We headed down to the beach on Friday for some canoe paddling and a little fun in the sun. For many of us, this was the first time experiencing the thrill of paddling on the open sea.

After a brief lesson on the basics of canoe paddling, we jumped right in and went for it. You could feel the anticipation build as we entered the water to begin our adventure. We quickly got into the rhythm of paddling in unison, which allowed us to glide smoothly over the gentle currents. We even caught a few waves and rode them back to shore. And of course, the day wouldn't be complete without a little competition. We got to show-off all of our newly-learned canoe paddling skills by having a little race. We had choke fun! What does "choke" mean you ask? Lets find out with this blog's Pidgin lesson.

Choke - A large quantity of something, many, lots, copious
Ex.
1. Had choke guys at the party? - Yea, had choke!
Were there a lot of people at the party? - Yes, there were a lot of people there!
2. Get choke food ah!
Wow! There is so much food here!

If you have kept up with all of our past Pidgin English lessons, you now have quite a good arsenal of words under your belt. I will conclude this blog by writing my last paragraph completely in Pidgin. There will be words you already know, as well as some that you might have not heard before. Try to see if you can figure out the meaning of those words on your own. If you are able to understand what I write here, give yourself a pat on the back! I think you'll find that you can probably understand a lot!

Ho, we had choke fun going canoe paddling! I like go again! Bra, gaurans I going go again this weekend. Oh yea, this week is the last week of da session fo our MLI students! Den they get one week off from school! Ho, some lucky ah dem! We going have one pot-luck party this week so we can end dis session wit one bang! Every time we get one pot-luck party, get choke ono grinds! I no can wait for eat um all! No worries, I going take choke pictures and put um on top this blog. So you can check um out and drool over all the ono grinds we going get! K, dat's all fo now! Shoots!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Chicken Wings Anyone?


Hey there! Just this past week, two of our students participated in a chicken wing eating contest that was held here on the college campus. Itsuki and Ji Hun were nominated by the student body to represent MLI, and to go after the coveted iPod Nano (first prize!). What they neglected to tell us is that the chicken wings would be spiced with el scorcho buffalo sauce (‘ho dat bugga is hot!’). Itsuki ‘wen go fo broke’ but got hot lips, and Ji Hun thought he could eat slowly… but still came out in second place. No surprise that a culinary student won. “Ho, he wen win!” They did a great job and made MLI proud. Pictures speak louder than words, so check it out.

Here is another quick Pidgin English lesson. I think that this word is easy to use (because you can use it in so many situations), but can be quite difficult to understand at first. If you ever come to Hawaii, I am sure that you will hear this word at least once or twice while you are here. Da kine - This can be used in lieu of a noun, verb, adjective, pronoun...pretty much anything. It can also be used in place of "umm" or "hmm" in casual conversations. Because you can use da kine in place of virtually any word (especially nouns), you must understand the context of the conversation in order to understand what da kine is referencing.

Sounds confusing? Let’s go to some examples to help clear things up.



Situation: Jake was invited to birthday party by Karen last night, but he told his friend Mike that he wasn't sure if he would go or not.


Mike: Ho Jake, you when go to da kine (the party) last night?
Jake: Oh yea yea, I went
Mike: Was da kine's (Karen’s) party ah?
Jake: Yea yea, Karen.
Mike: What kind of party was?
Jake: Was one da kine (birthday) party.

It seems confusing at first, but it's easy to understand once you hear it a few times. It's very commonly used, so keep your ears open!

That brings me the end of this blog. Take care and I'll see you all again soon!