Can you help Anglo American Understanding?

Help please, I’m stuck on pronunciation and really need to make progress on this.

I’ve been watching a video on sand. Please don’t ask why, I thought it was normal, doesn’t everybody like sand?

Anyway, one of the speakers talked of some volcanic islands and he pronounced them the Harwen Islands. I’ve replayed it several times and it still comes out as Harwen.

I’ve checked google maps and wikipedia and no luck. I’m in a mess now.

This chap had what I would call a Southern drawl, like you hear on cowboy movies and he was definitely saying Harwen. Did he, perchance, mean the Hawaiin Islands?

Any help appreciated.

Which got me to thinking – WA is an international community and perhaps we should all consider the words and pronunciations that we use. They are not always familiar to English speakers everywhere.

I can remember very clearly finding a burger bar on the outskirts of Calais in France. A chip butty please, I asked in my best teenage French. Blank expressions all around. I pointed to the chap next to me, just leaving the stand with a delicious looking chip butty. Ah, monsieur, un sandwich americain?

What !!! We invented chip butties. Chips not fries. So you see my point. We need to be concious of the various country specific words and pronunciations and maybe, sometimes, put the words in both English English and American English.

Back to the Harwen Islands – can anyone help, please. And then I can get back to my sand.

Bux