Simon Day didn’t learn te reo Māori as a child. Now a parent himself, he’s passionate about giving his sons the opportunity. My great grandfather, Tom French, was born under a tree at Waipapa marae in Kawhia, overlooking the black sands of the town’s harbour on the North Island’s west coast. As a young man … Read more
Two years ago, Haider Khan started his te reo Māori journey. Since then, he says, a new world has opened up for him, and he’s uncovered connections that he’d never noticed before. Haider Khan was inspired to take up te reo Māori at precisely the wrong time. After hearing a coworker at Spark delivering a … Read more
Today The Spinoff launches Ako, a new series made in partnership with Spark NZ to highlight their Kupu app, with a piece introducing three very different te reo Māori learners. Despite being indigenous to Aotearoa, the history of te reo Māori is a fraught one – it wasn’t until the late 1980s that it was … Read more
At the beginning of Te Wiki o Te Reo 2018, a new app was launched that translated images into Māori. Karyn Tattersfield looks at the legacy of John Moorfield ‘s famous dictionary, and the revolutionary new technology of Kupu. The extent of the late Professor John Moorfield’s impact on te reo Māori is hard to quantify. … Read more