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Building Sentences with Nouns, adjectives and articles
Building Sentences with Nouns, adjectives and articles
But first a little word that is used a lot! 'Ko' is a word that you see and hear a lot in te reo Māori, but what does it mean?
In English sentences there must be a main verb. Often it is the verb 'to be' or the verb 'to have'. e.g. 'I am a girl', 'it is a cat'. We often don't perceive 'is' and 'am' to be verbs as we are told early on that a verb is a 'doing' or 'action' word and where is the action in 'is' and 'am'?
In te reo Māori many types of sentences don't contain any verb. That is because there is no verb 'to be'.
So when we introduce ourselves in te reo Māori, we say 'Ko Anne ahau' - I am Anne. Or 'Ko Anne tōku ingoa' - My name is Anne.
We can't translate the word 'ko', we just have to learn how and when it is used.
Have a look at the examples below to see how 'ko' is used in sentences. Read the book to see how 'KO' is used to build sentences
Nouns - ngā tūingoa or ngā kupuingoa in te reo Māori
Nouns - ngā tūingoa or ngā kupuingoa in te reo Māori
There are two types of nouns in te reo Māori - traditional nouns and transliterations.
traditional nouns are the nouns that existed already in te reo Māori before colonisation
transliterations are the words that have been brought into the language that are English words for which there was no prior te reo Māori word. For example, Māori didn't have names for the days of the week or the months of the year, or for things that were not part of Māori life such as tēpu - table
He aha ngā tūingoa i tēnei kiriata?
turu - chair
kaiako - teacher
pene - pen
pene rākau - pencil
pukapuka - book
pōtae - hat
rōpū - group
hū - shoe
kai - food
awa - river
maunga - mountain
taringa - ear
waiata - song
tamariki - children
motokā - car
waka - canoe
whanau - family
ngeru - cat
kurī - dog
inu - drink
whare - house
rangi - sky
There are probably more you could come up with too, but which of these do you think are traditional kupu and which are transliterations?
This is an interesting article that talks about transliterations - they work the other way too - some names of places have been transliterated from te reo Māori into English!
This article talks about the difference between transliteration and translation and touches on the impacts of colonisation on the language.
Adjectives - Ngā tūāhua or kupuāhua
Adjectives - Ngā tūāhua or kupuāhua
Adjectives are used to describe nouns. Here is a list of common ones that you may know. How is the best way to remember these? Type them into 'Te Aka dictionary' and listen to the pronunciation. Repeat and practise. Do the activities in this Quizlet quiz to practise them.
pai - good
ātaahua - beautiful
nui - big
tere - fast
roa - long
whero - red
wera - hot
hūmarie - kind, humble
kino - bad, naughty
ora - well, healthy
reka - delicious, sweet
mōhio - wise, knowledgeable
mā - white
kaha - strong
teitei - tall
makariri - cold
More 'kupu iti' - little words that you will see a lot!
More 'kupu iti' - little words that you will see a lot!
He, Te and Ngā are used all over the place and they mean 'a', 'the' and 'some'. Let's start with He ....
He, Te and Ngā are used all over the place and they mean 'a', 'the' and 'some'. Let's start with He ....
He = a, and we use it to create simple short sentences like;
He āporo whero - a red apple
He awa roa - a long river
He ngeru pango - a black cat.
We also use He if we have more than one of these things e.g. some apples
He āporo whero - some red apples ( or just 'red apples)
He awa roa - some long rivers
He ngeru pango - some black cats
Those sentences look exactly the same! How do I know that you are talking about more than one?!
Tika! You are right, they are exactly the same, so we need to rely on the context. I might be pointing at some black cats over there - e.g. He ngēru pango ērā.
There is no plural ending to nouns in te reo Māori which is why it is incorrect to add the English plural 's' to the end of Māori words even if we are using them in an English sentence e.g. 'maungas' and Māoris'. However, some nouns do change their spelling - 'wahine' adds a macron to the first 'a' so it becomes 'wāhine'. "he wāhine mōhio' = 'some wise women.
Te = the , and we use it to create simple short sentences like;
Te maunga teitei - the high mountain
Te tamaiti kaha - the strong boy
Te rākau kakariki - the green tree
Ngā = the (plural) , and we use it to create simple short sentences like;
Ngā maunga teitei - the high mountains
Ngā tamariki kaha - the strong boys
Ngā rākau kakariki - the green trees
Now we have a word that helps us to know that what we are talking about is 'plural' - there is more than one. Notice that there are some other clues ... tamaiti has changed to tamariki - tamariki is the plural form of tamaiti.
But there is also something confusing - we've just said that some nouns add a macron to make them plural - but 'rākau' has a macron in the singular form as well as the plural form!!
Nobody ever said it was easy!!
So what does it look like when we put the 'kupu iti' (he, te or ngā) with a noun and an adjective?
So what does it look like when we put the 'kupu iti' (he, te or ngā) with a noun and an adjective?
Me whakaharatau
Me whakaharatau
Practise the sentences in this quiz, then use the images in the picture to make up your own sentences.
Create a quiz for yourself to practise and share with colleagues.
Adding more specificity
Adding more specificity
It's all well and good being able to say 'He kurī pango' but that relies on a context - knowing which dog is black. Sometimes it's obvious - it might have appeared at yur feet. But sometimes we want to be more specific. In English we use words like, 'this, that, these and those' to indicate which things we are talking about.
'This' describes something close to us, 'that' describes something further away.
'These' describes multipole things close to us and 'those' describes multiple things over there.
In English to be specific about how far away, we might say 'That dog is black, this one is white, but that one over there is brown'' meaning that the black dog is close to us, the white dog is a bit further way and the brown dog is way over there.
The kupu in te reo Māori we use are 'tēnei, tēnā, tērā' for singular objects and 'ēnei, ēnā and ērā' for multiple objects (There are regional, dialectical variations but we'll stick to theses for now!)
We need to use the kupu 'he' in these sentences - have a look at the examples below;
He roa te awa - the river is long
He makariri tēnei wai - this water is cold
He pai tēnā tangata - that person (over there but not too far away) is good
He kōwhai tērā rākau - that tree (way over there - further than the person!) is yellow
He mōhio ngā wahine - the women are wise
He kino ēnei kurī - these dogs (here close to me) are vicious
He kaha ēnā tamariki - those children (over there) are strong
He whero ērā pukapuka - those books (way over there) are red
Waihangatia! Create
Waihangatia! Create
Using the language intentionally everyday is a great way to embed it into your brain. Why not create your own memes using photos and sentences based on what we have been learning. Share them on social media or between friends. See below for examples
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