I’ve been getting some interest from classmates in Anki and vocabulary deck, so spent half an hour tidying up my full vocabulary deck.
It’s not perfect.
But, if you’re looking to rapidly develop a baseline vocabulary, I can highly recommend the Anki system for web/desktop/smartphones, and you’re welcome to download my deck.
Click here to download my Anki deck for Te Reo Māori kupu.
The Reo Project | Day 189
I’m working on growing my strategies for keeping afloat in a rumaki (immersion) environment. Our kaiako (teacher) is encouraging us to stay in the Reo, which means I need to have a kete of phrases I can use and understand.
Here’s a few I’m working on:
Whakamāramatia mai anō - Explain that to me again.
Āwhinatia mai - Help me.
Āta kōrero mai anō - Say that again to me slowly/carefully
He tohutō kei runga i te (a/e/i/o/u)? - Is there a tohutō (macron) above the a/e/i/o/u?
He ā he ō rānei? - Is it ā or ō?
He aha te tīkanga o tāna kōrero? - What is the meaning of what you said?
He aha te tīkanga o tērā? - What is the meaning of that?
He tauira anō? - Another example?
Aua hoki! - Dunno!
Kāore au i te mōhio - I don’t know
Kāore au i te mārama - I don’t understand
He uaua rawa! - It’s really difficult!
Whakamahia tō papakupu - Use your dictionary
Mahi takirua - Work in pairs
Mahi ā-rōpū - Work in a group
Mahitahi - Work together
Kāinga mahi - homework
The Reo Project | Day 188
“i” is used fairly frequently in Te Reo Māori. And of course, the built-in autocorrect in every software package automatically capitalises it to “I”.
Just one little bug in the system.
The Reo Project | Day 187
Here’s a tip: if you have the opportunity to stay on a marae, take it! (typically called a noho marae stay/trip/visit).
Here’s a bonus tip: Bring ear plugs.
The Reo Project | Day 186
Who decided you should learn Te Reo Māori?
Who told you why?
Who defined success?
Who described how to get there?
Who will tell you if you succeed?
Who will help you if you struggle?
Who owns your journey?
The Reo Project | Day 183
None of my hoanoho (housemates) or immediate hoamahi (workmates) have any fluency in Te Reo Māori, so regular kōrero Māori is pretty challenging.
Here’s what I’m doing at the moment:
I send at least one text message in Māori each day. I have four people I can text.
I always have at least one coffee date booked with one of these four people and we try and arrange it in Māori, and kōrero Māori for a little bit when we meet.
Here’s what I think my next steps are:
Learn and use on new passive command I can use with my kids each week.
Have a regular weekly 10 minute slot for kōrero Māori at work with the handful of people learning Te Reo this year.
Some other thoughts on what I can do to raise the temperature of the kōrero Māori water I swim in.
Put up a cheat sheet of encouraging phrases at work for my team to use for each other. Encouragement and praise must be in Māori first.
Put up a cheat sheet of email greetings and sign offs at work and use them in all our emails.
The Reo Project | Day 181
Today’s standout kupu is rumaki.
rumaki
1. (verb) (-na) to immerse, drown.
What’s a little bit freaky, is this is word being used by my kaiako to describe our approach.
Immersion sounds like an educational approach.
Drowned might be more accurate this weekend at te reo wānanga.
The Reo Project | Day 180
I should have listened to myself last Wednesday.
“Mauri mahi, mauri ora: Mauri noho, mauri mate”
Sleeping in for the last week means I’ve missed my morning homework times, and I’m waaaay behind.
My actions show my priorities. Apparently, this isn’t really a priority for me.
That’s going to change.
Alarm is set for 6am.
The Reo Project | Day 179
I missed a day. But I’m not missing two. Never miss two days.
Its because I left my phone at work, and it has all my reminders and daily to-do lists on it.
I know that only a bad worker blames their tools. But good workers usually have decent tools, so that has to mean something….
Speaking of good tools, I’ve looked at a fair few and here’s the three that I’m finding consistently helpful and using right now.
Anki: Free on Android, this is my #1 app for language learning right now. I’m doing 15 - 30 minutes of flashcards every day (except yesterday) and learning everything from single kupu, simple phrases, new sentence constructions grammar rules, through to entire karakia.
Māori Dictionary: This is bookmarked on my browser and on my home screen on my phone. I paid the money for the app because hey, it’s a digital dictionary in my pocket. And it has audio files for learning correct pronunciation!
Te Kākano: This book is awesome! I haven’t looked at it since I started my course, but I need all the help I can get so I’ll be digging into a new chapter next week I think! I put new sentences from this book into an Anki deck.
The Reo Project | Day 178
This year, I’m limiting my fictional reading to local authors. To kick off, I’ve just started The Parihaka Woman: An Epic Story of Love and War, by Witi Ihamaera.
Mixed into the promised epic story is the author’s own more modern thoughts and opinions, frequently expressed with deep emotion.
In Chapter 8, Ihamaera touches on the topic of historical accuracy, pointing out the biased and restrictive position where written accounts are prioritised over oral evidence in determining historical fact. Cultures and peoples without written histories are completely disregarded, missing the fact that these communities must have their own way of passing on knowledge, that is, of retaining history.
He puts it like this.
Why should an oral account be suspect? Māori have had hundreds of years to hone the memory. Yes, it’s oral: tough. Get over it … Let Māori write the history that we want to, from our own sources and our own perspective, that’s all I’m saying.
Witi Ihamaera, The Parihaka Woman, p.85
The Reo Project | Day 176
This week I was caught out not knowing many karakia.
It’s pretty obvious when you’re the only male in a group of six that you don’t know the words. The lack of a low voice in the mix is pretty unmistakable.
So I did some searching and found a handy page on the University of Otago website. It has traditional karakia as well as Christian-influenced karakia, each with audio recordings, translations, and examples for kai and opening and closing hui.
Here’s the one I didn’t know: A traditional karakia for opening a hui.
Unuhia, unuhia
Unuhia ki te uru tapu nui
Kia wātea, kia māmā, te ngākau, te tinana, te wairua i te ara takatā
Koia rā e Rongo, whakairia ake ki runga
Kia tina! TINA! Hui e! TĀIKI E!
Draw on, draw on,
Draw on the supreme sacredness
To clear, to free the heart, the body and the spirit of mankind
Rongo, suspended high above us (i.e. in ‘heaven’)
Draw together! Affirm!
The Reo Project | Day 175
I often hear the line “do the mahi, get the treats”.
It turns out, it’s kind of a whakatauki.
“Mauri mahi, mauri ora”
“Through work, we prosper”
In fact, the full whakatauki is:
“Mauri mahi, mauri ora: Mauri noho, mauri mate”
“Industry begets prosperity: idleness begets poverty”
“Do the mahi, get the treats” is pretty catchy, but I wonder if we could just say it in Te Reo Māori. The short version only has three words!
Here’s a file you can print, made by the great people over at Kupu o Te Rā.
The Reo Project | Day 174
Today I learnt about negative sentence structures for different tohu o te wā (tenses).
This only applies for some type of sentence but I’m not sure what those types are is, other than I know we didn’t cover passives.
Basically, to construct a negative sentence:
Start the sentence with kāore
Move the subject of the sentence (e.g. au, koe, tāua, rātou) from the “end” of the sentence to immediately after kāore (with one exception).
Include the correct verb construction for the tense.
I learnt about six different tohu o te wā today. For normal (non-negative) sentences, there are different kupu which begin the sentence that tell you when the action is situated.
These six are:
E … ana
Kua …
I …
Kei te …
Ka …
I te …
For negative sentences, three are the same and three are different. (Spot which three are different. Hint: They’re in bold).
… e … ana
… anō … kia …
… i …
… i te … *
… e …
… i te … *
*note that the negative is the same for present tense /Kei te… and past continuing action / I te … .
Confused? So was I.
Here’s an example using haere and au/ahau.
Te wā - Tohu o te wā | Whakakahōre
E haere ana au | Kāore au e haere ana
I am going (continually). I am not going (continually)**
Kua haere au | Kāore anō au kia haere
I had gone. I had not gone**
I haere au | Kāore au i haere
I went. I did not go**
Kei te haere au | Kāore au i haere ana
I am going (right now). I am not going (right now)**
Ka haere au | Kāore au e haere
I will go. I will not go**
I te haere au | Kāore au i te haere
I was going. I was not going**
Check out the kupu o te rā summary page for more information on negatives,
The Reo Project | Day 173
**The English translations are especially loose. Like many things on The Reo Project, they’re not necessarily correct, they’re my best guess at what I think they mean. Like everything I post, don’t take it for granted, use it as inspiration to go on your own journey!
I’ve created another small Anki deck for learning kupu related to work.
You can download it by clicking here.
As before, it’s mostly based on this list of words from the Kupu o te Rā website.
The Reo Project | Day 172
pouaka = box
pouako = teacher
This got awkward today in a text conversation.
Here’s to single syllable slip-ups!
The Reo Project | Day 171
I’ve been doing half an hour of flashcards nearly ever day for 170 days now.
I’ve got terrible self-disciple, but I’ve managed to keep it up fairly consistently. Especially when you consider there was a summer holiday in the middle there.
My trick? It’s been the one thing I make sure I do every day.
The Reo Project | Day 170
I managed to sustain a pace of 25 new words per day over the first three months fo learning Te Reo Māori.
But now I’ve broadened my learning from simple kupu to include more complex and context-specific kupu, as well as phrases, idioms and sentence structures with gradually increasing complexity.
So I’ve cut back my new word learning rate to 10 per day. And in reality, it’s only 5 new words per day because I learn them using the Māori prompt first, and then learn them using the English prompt the following day.
The key is steady, regular growth.
The Reo Project | Day 169
I’ve been trying to identify areas of my life where I can start us kōrero Māori. I’m looking for specific situations that occur fairly regularly, are well-defined, and where I have simple interactions with other people.
One area I have identified is around the dinner table and asking for different items to be passed to me.
Another, is taking my kids to the playground.
Here’s an assortment of statements/commands that I think will cover most playground adventures.
Kia tere! - Be quick!
Piki ake! - Climb up!
Here iho! - Get down!
Kia tūpato! - Be careful!
Ka haere tātou/tāua. - Let’s go.
Titiro ahu! - Look over there!
Titiro mai! - Look here!
Haere mai! - Come here!
He aha tērā? - What is that?
The Reo Project | Day 167
I’ve been digging around on the Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori / Māori Language Commission website.
There’s so much great stuff there!
I’ve looking for things that can help “raise the temperature” of Te Reo Māori in my home. My whānau are keen to learn, but I also know that having people I can kōrero Māori with at home will be really helpful for me in my study this year.
So it’s a little selfish also.
But I think this phrase card will be pretty good to start with. I’m going to print off a copy and put it up in our kitchen.
I also made an Anki deck with all the phrases in it if you want to learn them that way.
The Reo Project | Day 166
I keep coming across more kupu for “peace”.
Here’s what I’ve collected so far.
maungārongo
hūmārie
mārie
rangimārie
I imagine there are regional and/or contextual differences that determine which one is used. For example, rongo is noted as being specifically peace “after war” in the Māori Dictionary.
I also discovered this kupu/phrase:
tatau pounamu
1. (noun) enduring peace, making of peace, peacemaking - literally ' greenstone door', a metaphor for lasting peace. When peace was made a precious gift was often made to symbolise the event.
The Reo Project | Day 165