Summer Fun in the Sun

Aloooooooha! Our summer session has just ended and our students are officially on summer vacation. We start our Fall I session on August 17th, so our students have a few weeks to unwind and enjoy the rest of the summer.

We also had a few students who completed our program and will be parting ways with us. While it's sad to say goodbye to our students, we are also filled with happiness and admiration knowing that they will continue to challenge themselves by pursuing their goals in life. Many of our former students have taken the skills and experience gained from the Maui Language Institute and are utilizing them in their everyday lives. We have students pursing college degrees at universities all over the world as well as former students who have jobs that use English.

As you all know by now, an MLI potluck always has great food and entertainment. It is a time for all of us to get together and celebrate the wonderful memories that we have made over the past few weeks with one another. The food was excellent as always. There was so much food that it was impossible to eat it all! Our students provided the entertainment by reading their poetry and showing us their storytelling skills. It was amazing to see how well the students performed in public! Their pronunciation was impressive and their enthusiasm was contagious.

Here's the Pidgin English for today! Today's lesson is about the word "stay." In English the word "stay" has several different meanings. It can mean to remain, to wait for, or even to take up residence. However, the word "stay" in Pidgin English can also take on a totally different meaning. It is usually used with the progressive tense of verbs (verb+ing) or adjectives to express a current situation or state. For example, when you want to ask someone what they are doing right now, you would say "what you stay doing?" This would be translated as "what are you doing right now?" While this sounds confusing, it is pretty easy to get the hang of. I think it will be easier to understand this concept by looking at a few examples.

1. Dave: Ho, what you stay doing?
Alan: I stay eating.

Translation:
Dave: Hey what are you doing (right now)?
Alan: I'm eating (right now, at this very moment).

2. Micah: I stay hungry!
Joe: I stay hungry too, but I no can eat cause I stay broke!

Translation:
Micah: I'm hungry!
Joe: I'm hungry too, but I can't buy anything to eat because I'm broke!

3. Jack: (Talking to Pat on his cell phone). Ho, where you stay?
Pat: I stay at the beach.

Translation:
Jack: Hey, where are you right now?
Pat: I'm at the beach (at this moment).

You'll hear this word used quite a lot among native speakers of Hawaii Pidgin English. Using this word correctly will make your Pidgin English sound very natural. So make sure you put this word into your Pidgin arsenal!

Here's an important detail you should remember. Because "stay" is used to describe a current and ephemeral state, adjectives that describe a permanent or long-lasting state will sound a little funny. For example, adjectives that describes a person's natural appearance would sound strange because it's a relatively permanent situation. Thus, saying something like "She stay pretty" would sound a little weird. If you did say that, the underlying meaning would be "she is pretty NOW, but she wasn't pretty before/won't be pretty in the future."

Wow! That was quite a long Pidgin English lesson that we had today. But the word "stay" is such a useful word that it is worth explaining. It's that time again where we have come to the end of another blog. No worries! We'll be back in no time with more wonderful updates for you. Pau for now!