"E kelekiko au iā ʻoe."

[rabelon]

The "E" indicates a command form. But for 1st person singular, it is equivalent to giving oneself a command. Consider the identical in the 2nd person singular command. "E hele ‘oe i ka hale." [I command] you [to] go home. "E hele au i ka hale." Literally, I command myself to go home. But the common translation is more like "I will go home." It sounds like future tense. "E kelekiko au," "I command myself to text," implies it will happen sometime into the future, but is really just a command; might not happen. As Kaimana said, true future tense, "E kelekiko ana au," basically says the same thing, "I will text you," and so the "ana" is dropped in this particular case. (But not every case).

As RonRGB says, the future tense applied to 2nd person singular, looks like "E kelekiko ana ‘oe ia‘u." You WILL text me. It is no longer a command; it is definitely the future. I feel that Kaimana is correct for this prompt, the English translation is slightly off. Sorry for the wordy explanation.

[Nico838548]

Where does the future form in this come from?

[GayleKilde]

same question - there arent any future tense markers

[KaimanaSoliai]

There are no future tense markers. I do believe that the given hawaiian phrase should’ve been written differently

[DABurnside]

This statement flummoxed me, so I looked up "E." Here it is: It marks not only the imperative mood, but also the intentive mood, stating my intent to text you. So it doesnʻt make it the future tense the way we are accustomed to think, itʻs just that the intent involves the future in a way.

[Nico838548]

Also how do you know when you have to use "iā"? Does it just come with certain verbs that you have to learn or is there another rule?

[KaimanaSoliai]

“iā” is used to proceed an object when that object is either a person’s name or a pronoun.

[Nico838548]

Thank you very much :)

[KaimanaSoliai]

He mea iki ;)

[AlanAbonyi]

How do you tell the difference between present and future?

[RonRGB]

In this case, (E) can be a marker for the future. However, it has a less definite commitment to the time frame.

Note: Difference between (e verb ana) and (e).

(E) often translates as (will) while (e verb ana) often translates as (going to).

(E) kelekilo au iā ʻoe. = I will text you.

(E) kelekilo (ana) au iā ʻoe. = I am going to text you.

[KaimanaSoliai]

Typically future is written “e (verb) ana” but in this sentence, the “ana” was dropped, which really makes me think it was just not written correctly in the first place. Or their English translation is slightly off.

[Nico838548]

"E uku au i ka pila" was accepted as "i shall pay the bill". Why is "i shall text you" not accepted here? Should it not be accepted in both cases or has it just been forgotten here?

[KaimanaSoliai]

I do believe that this is incorrectly translated? Because a future tense marker is not technically present in the hawaiian sentence