Present Tense

We use the present tense to talk about what we are doing now - continuous present - or what we do regularly.

In English there are two forms of the present tense and they look like this:

I dream (generally, I just dream or I dream everyday)

I am dreaming (continuous or active - what I am doing right now)

In te reo Māori there are also two ways to express the present tense but these are dialectical as we have already discussed - Kei te ... is the most widely used way of expressing the present tense, but in Tainui dialect e...ana is used.

English sentence order

The woman is singing

Article + Noun + verb

Māori sentence order

E waiata ana te wahine

Verb + article + Noun

Notice that in English we use the verb 'to be' to help express the action of the verb 'to sing' - 'is singing' or 'am dreaming'.

There is no word in Māori that helps the verb, the verb on its own is enough

What sentences can you make with the verbs below?

E pānui ana ngā tamariki - the children are reading

E oma ana a Paora - Paora is running

E haere ana ia - He is going

E kai ana te whanau - The family is eating

E inu ana te taiohi - The young man is drinking

E waiata ana ngā ākonga - the pupils are singing

E kanikani ana ngā kōtiro - the girls are dancing

E tuhi ana te kaiako - the teacher is writing

Practice the sentences by doing the activities in this quizlet

Personal Pronouns

Sometimes we don't want or need to use the noun in a sentence, we may need to use a name or a personal pronoun. A Personal Pronoun replaces the noun - it goes in place of the noun. For example in one of the sentences above, instead of saying 'The man is going' we said 'He is going'.

In te reo Māori they are a little more complicated as you will notice in the table to the right.

E kai ana au = I am eating

E kai ana ia = He/she/it is eating

E kai ana koe = You are eating

E kai ana rāua - they (2 people) are eating

E kai ana mātou - We (3 or more but not you who is listening to us) are eating

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