10 JAPANESE WORDS We Say in HAWAII That Don’t Mean the Same in JAPAN

So as someone who grew up and lived in Hawaii most of my life, I speak Hawaiian Pidgin. And sprinkled in that language are a bunch of words that I thought were Japanese. However, after marrying someone from Japan, I was confused when she didn’t understand what some of these Hawaii words meant.

So let’s go over 10 Japanese words we use in Hawaii that aren’t really used in Japan. Some places in Japan may still use these words, but they aren’t really that common. In linguistics, these types of words are called loanwords, in case you were curious.

(Update: Might have the wrong spelling for "gigi". Proper spelling is probably "jiji".


Intro - 0:00
Bocha - 0:43
Girigiri - 1:22
Jan Ken Po - 3:00
Jiji- 4:04
Hanabata - 4:53
Musubi - 5:23
Kakimochi - 5:59
Habuteru - 6:40
Saimin - 7:12
Shibai - 8:31
Closing - 9:18


#hellofromhawaii
#hawaii
#hawaiiwords

Filmed in the Canon G60.

📷 IG -   / hello_from_hawaii