He ninau ka'u ia oukou

Aloha e ka poe heluhelu,

On June 1st I'm launching a new subscription with weekly lessons and material for learners. As I put it together, one thing I keep coming back to is this: what helps people actually retain and use what they learn? I'd love your input on that, and I'll explain why in a moment.

Over the weekend a Samoan friend asked me how people become good speakers of Hawaiian and what they should focus on. I shared a few things, but one that really caught his attention was the concept of input versus output.

Input and Output

Input is essentially consuming the language by listening or reading. This is where you make time to feed yourself the language auditorily or visually.

Output is taking what's been inputted and expressing it in writing or speaking.

A huge mistake I see some students make is that their input is low, but their output is high. This always results in poor pronunciation, inaccurate word choice, alien speech rhythm, grammatical chaos, and unintelligible speech, meaning even I can't understand what they're trying to say.

If you're not inputting at a high volume, your first language, whatever it is, has an incredible influence on how you think, which then affects how you express yourself in writing or speaking.

Here is where you come in. I want to know which works best for you personally.

For input, do you find it easier to learn by listening or reading? For output, do you retain more by writing or speaking?

Pick one from each and email me back. Your feedback will directly shape what I build for this new subscription.

Mahalo,

Maluhia