"Hele au i ke kūʻai hele."

Translation: I go shopping.

[rabelon]

"Hele" means to travel. "Ku'ai hele" is the act of shopping.

"Hele au i ke ku'ai hele," I travel for shopping.

"Ke hele nei au i ke ku'ai hele," I am travelling for shopping.

"E hele ana au i ke ku'ai hele," I will be travelling for shopping.

Substituting "hele" for "go" seems to clutter things up in translation. The principle action in this sentence is travelling. The object is shopping.

[GeraldMath4]

I wonder how one would say "I go to the store" then. And both English sentences are silly. Everyone goes to the store, and everyone goes shopping. What I want to learn is how to say "I'm going shopping" to express my immediate plans.

[DABurnside]

Hele au i ka hale kūʻai/I go to the store (because I get more exercise wandering around than from ordering nā mea no (things from) Amazon). I believe that Hawaiian uses present tense to express near future events, and if so, "Iʻm going shopping" equals "I go shopping" and is Hele au i ke kūʻai hele. I could be wrong, though. Edit Someone commented that the future tense can be created with E [verb] ana but thatʻs all I know.

[LoJo29]

Nothing in this course as it exists right now distinguishes present and present-continuous tenses, so you're right to treat them as the same. But apparently, according to Wikipedia, "ke [verb] nei" explicitly turns the action into the present-continuous.

My best guess at "I'm going shopping" would then be "Ke hele nei au i ke hele kūʻai" (again, literally a guess; I learned about nei about 2 minutes ago after seeing this thread).

[KiUlv]

You're right about "ke--nei"

I speak Hawaiian and I'm struggling with some of these sentences. So many of them feel either too specific (not accepting equal alternatives I think should be accepted) or they are too inclusive (having one structure cover present and future tense, when a different structure for future tense exists). And I never know which one will be which way (too specific/too loose).

[GeraldMath4]

Is "going to the store" a present-continuous or a future-one-time action?

[SariahLily]

"Going to the store" is present-continuous.

The future would be "Iʻm going to go to the store."

[rabelon]

E hele au e ku'ai hele.