Aloha kākou, aloha to all, This website represents my attempt to share with the Internet Community my interest in Polynesian languages and cultures. At the moment, only the Hawaiian language is represented here, but I hope to add other languages in the future. Some of this information may be useful to students, travellers, or anyone else interested in learning a little about this wonderful place on Earth. Between late 2002 and early 2003, I worked with a wonderful company in England called EuroTalk Interactive to create Hawaiian versions of several of their very popular computer-based language-learning World Talk, Talk Now!, and Vocabulary Builder discs. The voice recordings were completed with the help of a good friend named Hanakahi, adding a nice female voice to the games. I am very pleased with the result, and I think anyone wishing to learn Hawaiian using a game-style interface on their computers will enjoy this set. They are re-packaged in the U.S. by Topics Entertainment and are for sale directly from me. Please help support my work by purchasing from the Online Store. In August 2003, I wrote and recorded a set of eight audio CDs for Topics Entertainment designed to teach very basic Hawaiian language to beginners. In creating the set, I expected that students would take about one year to get through all the material. There are many Hawaiians and "Hawaiians at heart" who live in the mainland U.S., and my inspiration for this set came from wanting to provide material for them to learn Hawaiian, though so far from Hawaii they may be. Both my own voice and that of my good friend Kiele, an excellent Hawaiian language speaker, are on the discs, allowing listeners to learn best from the type of voice they prefer, male or female. Please consider purchasing directly from me if you wish to buy the set; it will help support future additions to this website. The Online Store is here; once again, I appreciate your support. And be sure to get your iPod all fired up so you can use iTunes to put the eight discs on there for use anywhere, anytime! If you have already bought the audio CDs, or simply would like to find out what I teach during the 8 hours of lessons, please find the PDF files of all the text here, or just click on the "Web Help" icon on the Home Page. A friend recently commented that the name "PanPolynesia" is perhaps a little redundant. I must admit that, while this may indeed be so, I think of it as "encompassing all of Polynesia," and therefore I choose to leave it at that! The material on this website is of my own creation, but I also help out some friends who are in need of server space. Their sites are found in the Other Websites section of this site. If you would like to submit any material for the website, or request that I host your own sub-site, you may contact me (kaliko at panpolynesia.net). I am very busy, but will attempt to reply to you as soon as possible. Please be patient! Me ke aloha,Kaliko |