"ʻO kēia keiki punahele ka muli loa."

Translation: This favorite child is the youngest.

[BethKing-M]

What is the distinction between "pōki'i" and "muli loa"? And how fo you know when to use each one?

[sebdotedu]

I gained the impression that "põki'i" is specifically referring to the youngest child in a family/set of siblings, while "muli loa" just literally means "very young" or "youngest".

I assume that "muli" can be translated as "young" in general, while "põki'i" is restricted to that context of a family. Perhaps we can find examples of the word "muli" being applied to nouns and items other than siblings (and people!). Aloha!

[GeraldMath4]

"This favorite child," not "that favorite child." How many favorite children can one have to pick one from?

[Eliza727459]

It's for emphasis, not distinguishing between"this" and "that." Try saying the sentence emphasizing differently. "This FAVORITE child is my youngest." We might say "this favored child..." in English to make the same point.

[RonRGB]

Equational Sentences, HAW 101

ʻO (Slide 8 to 14)

(Grammar Link): https://www.slideshare.net/malama777/aike-101

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muli loa = youngest

link: http://wehewehe.org/gsdl2.85/cgi-bin/hdict?e=q-11000-00---off-0hdict--00-1----0-10-0---0---0direct-10-ED--4--textpukuielbert%2ctextmamaka%2ctextandrew%2ctextparker%2ctextchd-----0-1l--11-en-Zz-1---Zz-1-home-youngest--00-4-1-00-0--4----0-0-11-00-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&d=D160641

muliloa [muli·loa] n. last born child. (NKE)

link: http://ulukau.org/chd/haw-m.htm#muliloa

[Mr.Kainoa]

"This youngest child is the favorite," not accepted.

[Eliza727459]

Because you summarized the idea and didn't translate exactly what was written.

[Mr.Kainoa]

"This is the favorite youngest child," not accepted either.

[Eliza727459]

Same thing. Imagine being a translator for a government official in negotiations. You don't have the option of summarizing the gist - the speaker chooses the specific words for a reason. Pretending like this helps me stay true to the structure, even tho the meaning might be stated in several similar ways.