Correcting common errors in te reo Māori for all levels of students and speakers

Ngā Hapa Reo: Common Māori Language Errors
Hona Black and Te Aorangi Murphy-Fell

Bilingual addition to Oratia’s te reo reference series explains and corrects common errors in Māori

Māori language teachers and consultants Hona Black and Te Aorangi Murphy-Fell hear a lot of common errors in te reo, not only in the courses they teach but also among fluent speakers. 

That motivated the pair to write Ngā Hapa Reo, making readers aware of common Māori language errors and how to right them, so that the reo can flourish in the future.

 

From choosing between awhi and āwhina, to the importance of tohutō (macrons), to whether to address a friend as ‘Hēmi’ or ‘e Hēmi’ — the new book deals with word choice, grammar, interference from English and more. It profiles more than 150 common errors, with explanations about how to correct them.

Chapter openings are in Māori on left-hand pages and English on the right, while examples are profiled on one page, making this bilingual book accessible to readers of all levels of fluency.

 

Ngā Hapa Reo adds to Oratia's language reference series, which includes Hona's books He Iti te Kupu: Māori Metaphors and Similes and Te Reo Kapekape: Māori Wit and Humour.

Published in time for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, this new work fills a gap in the market for language resources. 

The authors

Hona Black (Tūhoe, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) lectures on teaching for Māori medium schools at Massey University, Palmerston North. This is his third book about te reo Māori. Hona lives in Porirua with his partner and their son. 

Te Aorangi Murphy-Fell (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Apa) is a Māori language and education consultant for Haemata Limited. He has a keen interest in governance and holds several directorships. Te Aorangi lives in Whakatāne with his family.

Publication: 2 September 2024 | ISBN: 978-1-99-004259-1 | RRP $39.99

Paperback, 210 x 148 mm portrait, 196 pages, b&w

How to be funny in te reo Māori | The Project NZ

Hona Black and his new book, Te Reo Kapekape: Māori Wit and Humour
on The Project NZ. 

Kei te reo Māori inaianei te paetukutuku o Oratia – Oratia web pages now in te reo Māori

I te kainamutanga o Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, e harikoa ana a Oratia Media ki te tuku i tā mātou paetukutuku i te reo Māori me te reo Ingarihi hoki.

With Māori Language Week about to start, Oratia Media is pleased to make our website available in te reo Māori as well as English. 

 

Mā te pāwhiri i ngā pātene reo Ingarihi, reo Māori rānei i te pito mauī whakarunga o ngā whārangi matua o www.oratia.co.nz, e taea ai e ngā manuhiri te tīpako i te reo e hiahiatia ana.

By clicking on buttons for English or Māori at the top left of the main pages on www.oratia.co.nz, visitors to the site can choose their preferred language. 

 

Mā te whai paetukutuku reorua e whakaatu i tō mātou manawanuitanga ki te whanaketanga me te whakamahinga o te reo Māori i ia rā i ia rā, ā, he whakamihi anō hoki i ngā reo whaimana o Aotearoa. 

Having a bilingual website reflects our commitment to the development and use of te reo Māori everyday, and recognises the official languages of Aotearoa New Zealand. 

 

E mihi ana ki te kaiwhakawhiti reo rēhita, a Kanapu Rangitauira, i āna whakamāoritanga tino pai rawa atu. 

 

Our thanks to registered translator and regular contributor, Kanapu Rangitauira, for his excellent translation. 

Ka mahi tonu a Oratia Books kia nui haere ai tā mātou rārangi pukapuka reo Māori, reorua hoki, pērā i ngā whakaputanga o tēnei marama: Te Reo Kapekape: Māori Wit and Humour, nā Hona Black, me Te Pukapuka ka Kore e Pānuihia, nā Tim Tipene rāua ko Nicoletta Benella, ā, nā Kanapu i whakamāori. 

 

Oratia Books will continue to increase our list of Māori language resources and bilingual books, as evidenced by this month’s publications: Te Reo Kapekape: Māori Wit and Humour, by Hona Black, and The Book that Wouldn’t Read/Te Pukapuka ka kore e Pānuihia, by Tim Tipene and Nicoletta Benella, translated by Kanapu. 

Kia kaha te reo Māori!

Bilingual book brings to life the humour of te reo Māori

Te Reo Kapekape: Māori Wit and Humour

Hona Black

Publishing on 1 September, a new book by scholar Hona Black lifts the curtain on all the humour, wit, innuendo and play that distinguishes everyday te reo Māori.

Te Reo Kapekape (literally, ‘the language of poking fun’) will make readers cry with laughter, engage in lively banter, and perhaps blush a little. 

From calling a silly person a ‘roro hipi / sheep’s brain’, to telling them to get stuffed or suggesting they live amongst the dinosaurs (‘Ētahi mokoweri!’), this book has a witty saying or comeback for any situation.

Using a cast of characters and dramatised dialogue, Hona explains more than 130 phrases and gives examples and suggestions for use – whether to tease, crack a joke or just add some spice to the language. 

The text is printed in te reo on the left-hand pages and English on the right, making it accessible to language learners, fluent speakers or general readers interested in Māori culture and language. 

 

With this new publication, Hona aims to ‘reposition te reo kapekape as a language of every day again, in the hope that it is heard and that Māori can once again laugh through their own language.’ 

Te Reo Kapekape extends Oratia's language reference series, which includes Hona's first book, He Iti te Kupu: Māori Metaphors and Similes.

 

Publishing in time for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, Te Reo Kapekape offers plenty of ideas to have fun and spice up your language, while supporting the revitalisation of te reo Māori.

The author

Hona Black (Tūhoe, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) lectures on teaching for Māori medium schools at Te Pūtahi a Toi: School of Māori Knowledge at Massey University, Palmerston North. He has worked as the Senior Māori Adviser on Massey’s Wellington campus, and been Head of Te Reo Māori at Hato Pāora College in Feilding. Hona lives in Porirua with his partner and their baby son.

Publication: 1 September 2023  |  ISBN: 978-1-99-004237-9 | RRP $39.99

Paperback, 210 x 148 mm portrait, 308 pages, b&w

Kia Hou Taku Tou! – kua reo Māori a I Need a New Bum!

Kia Hou Taku Tou/I Need a New Bum!

Translated by Stephanie Huriana Fong

Written by Dawn McMillan

Illustrated by Ross Kinnaird

Te reo Māori edition out tomorrow marks tenth-anniversary of global bestseller I Need a New Bum!

It was hearing her own tamariki plead to have Dawn McMillan and Ross Kinnaird’s books in te reo that motivated translator Stephanie Huriana Fong to get to work on the bestselling I Need a New Bum!.

Her sparkling, rhyming Māori version of the text arrives with perfect timing in September — ready for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2022, and also marking ten years since the book first hit the shelves. 

 

All of the colourful and active main text is in te reo, following our hero as he searches for a tou hou/new bum, after finding that his one has a crack. 

Kia hou taku tou! Ko tōku, kua tawhā. 

Ki te whakaata kitea ai te tāwha i muri nā.

 

‘Subtitles’ in English run at the bottom of the page to help readers of all ages to understand and learn.

Stephanie’s gorgeous rhyming reo is available at good booksellers nationwide from 1 September.

Kia Hou Taku Tou! ‘brings the New Bum home’ almost exactly 10 years after it was published on 20 September 2012. 

It marks the latest in a string of language versions — the boy with the cracked behind has delighted readers in American English, Chinese, Italian, Korean and Portuguese, with further editions under development in Spanish and Turkish. 

The translator

Stephanie Huriana Fong (Te Rarawa) is a registered translator of te reo Māori who also appears on Māori Television and in other media. She has translated several other books, including Rona Moon (Oratia Books, 2020). Stephanie lives with her whānau in Te Atatū, Auckland.

The authors

Dawn McMillan is the much-loved author of numerous children’s books including I Need a New Bum! , Doctor Grundy’s Undies and the 2020 release Sir Singlet. She lives in Waiomu, north of Thames. Ross Kinnaird is a legendary illustrator and designer whose books have been published around the world, many of them in collaboration with Dawn. He lives close to the water on Auckland’s North Shore. 

Publication: 1 September 2022  |  ISBN: 978-1-99-004224-9 | RRP $19.99

Paperback, 230 x 215 mm portrait, 32 pages, colour

 

The meaning of Kaitangata, from A.W. Reed’s classic Māori Place Names

The South Otago town of Kaitangata has been in the news of late after a massive global response to its efforts to attract new residents with an offer of cheap housing, plentiful jobs and a friendly community. 

What about its name? In a literal translation 'kai' means food and 'tangata' means people, so an origin that has to do with cannibalism is likely. One version is that after a battle fought over eeling rights in the vicinity, the chief Mokomoko was killed an eaten by the victors. A more savoury (if that's the right word) explanation is that it was named after an ancestor who travelled on the Arai-te-uru canoe. 

Discover the Māori names and their meaning in the fully revised edition of A.W. Reed’s classic Māori Place Names.

From the book Māori Place Names: the meaning of Whangaparāoa and Whāngārei

Whales were an important resource to pre-European Māori, and that’s reflected in several well-known names.

Whangaparāoa, the peninsula north of Auckland city, means Bay or harbour of sperm whales; whanga (harbour); parāoa (sperm whale).

Among the many explanations for the name Whāngārei is that it’s a shortened form of Whāngārei-terenga-parāoa: whanga (harbour); rei (rushing); terenga (place of swimming); parāoa (sperm whale).

Find these and many more definitions in Māori Place Names. For more about the book go to https://www.oratia.co.nz/product/maori-place-names/

A.W. Reed, author of Māori Place Names

A.W. Reed, author of Māori Place Names, played upon his surname when designing the logo for his publishing company, A.H. & A.W. Reed. The logo features the raupō, New Zealand’s native reed.

Raupō is also a place name – there are settlements of this name near Ruawai in Northland and inland from Greymouth – and the definition is included in the fourth edition. Revising editor Peter Dowling was himself a former publishing manager at Reed Publishing.

The late A.W. Reed

‪‎Māori Language Week‬ /‎Te Wiki o te Reo Māori‬ - Māori word of the day: te

The word te stands as a separate part of many place names – think Te Aroha, Te Kauwhata or Te Waipounamu. That’s no surprise when you understand that it means ‘the’ in Māori. So:

Te Aroha – ‘The love’, referring to the emotion felt here by the early traveller Kahumatamomoe

Te Mata – ‘The headland’

Te Waipounamu – ‘The greenstone waters’, the Māori name for the South Island

[IMAGE – Te Waipounamu]

Te Waipounamu, from the map featured in Māori Place Names

The fourth edition of Māori Place Names is out in good bookstores today

 

The book contains a list of words that commonly form part of Māori place names – among them manga, which means ‘stream, creek’.

Manga is found in names all over the country. One combination is Mangaweka, a place just south of Taihape. The weka is the New Zealand wood-hen – so Mangaweka means ‘Creek of the wood hens’.

This and other illustrations by celebrated artist James Berry featured in the early editions of the book, and have been brought back for the 2016 edition.

Māori Place Names marking Māori Language Week

Māori Language Week/Te Wiki o te Reo Māori is underway – and Oratia Books is marking the week by publishing the fully revised edition of A.W. Reed’s classic Māori Place Names tomorrow.

This fourth edition gives meanings and origins of over 2300 of the most important and widespread Māori names.

Each day this week we’ll explain one name or feature. Today’s is one of the most common – Wainui.

Wai means water; nui means big. So Wainui means ‘Big river, bay or expanse of water’.