"That is a large cup of coffee."
Translation:He kīʻaha kope nui kēlā.
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Large cup of coffee or large coffee cup? I experimented: "He kīʻaha nui o kope kēlā. Nope.
You cannot translate every word like that. If you use o meaning of, then you need the requisite article after as well, ke in this case. He kīʻaha nui kēlā o ke kope. / He kīʻaha nui o ke kope kēlā.
Actually as it stands now, that sentence is a bit ambiguous. That Hawaiian could be That is a large coffee cup. or That is a large cup of coffee.
Just as in English a noun can be used as an adjective to specify the type, as a compound noun. In this case, that noun kope is used to describe what is in it.
This seems to go against pretty much everything else as far as sentence structure that we have learned so far. Since it is a large cup that is spoken of, should it not be kī'aha nui?
I believe if it were only "large cup" then "kīʻaha nui" would be correct. Since there are 2 adjectives/descriptors, the order of precedence is important. "kīʻaha nui kope" translates more closely to "coffee large cup", rather than "kīʻaha kope nui" as "large coffee cup", which sounds much more natural. But I also misunderstood, as I thought the English was asking for "kīʻaha nui o ke kope" as "large cup of coffee".
