Your September 2023 Mobile Newsletter

September 2023

Kia ora Mobile friends,

To start this month, I’d like to share a little personal background about myself.
I’m a child of immigrants and was born and raised in California, USA. When people think of the stereotypical immigrant story, they tend to picture a married couple moving to another country together. In the case of my parents, they actually met in the United States – they had immigrated there previously for different reasons and during different decades of their lives. While they both had a shared ethnic lineage, they had moved to the US from different countries and their primary languages were also different – Dutch and Indonesian. After meeting, marrying, and having children, it was likely simpler for them to raise me and my brother to assimilate and speak American English, especially considering that that was the main language they shared.

In recent years, I’ve had more bandwidth to gradually explore my ethnic identities and slowly learn the ancestral tongues of my parents. Because I grew up surrounded by the multiple cultures of my family and the communities I lived in, being surrounded by different languages – whether I understand them or not – is normal to me. Now that we live in Aotearoa New Zealand, seeing or hearing the Māori language kind of provokes that familiar feeling of hearing languages other than English. Because te reo Māori (the Māori language) is relatively prominent here, I’ve made an effort to learn the very basics at minimum and encourage you to do the same – or even better, continue your journey if you’ve already started!

As always, feel free to reach out if there is a particular topic you’d like to hear more about. We’re here to help.

Elizabeth
Newsletter Editor

Learning Te Reo Māori & the Māori Language Movement

Coming from the United States – a country that technically doesn’t have an official language – living in Aotearoa New Zealand has been refreshing when it comes to becoming more cognizant of another language, te reo Māori (the Māori language) in this case. While we had previously learned on a trip to New Zealand a decade earlier that the tangata whenua (lit. “people land” aka indigenous people) of Aotearoa are the Māori people, we understandably didn’t consider learning the language at the time because, well, we were on holiday in the opposite hemisphere. Soon after we started thinking about moving here, I decided it was time to introduce ourselves to te reo Māori. Even though English is the dominant language, New Zealand has three official languages, Te reo, sign language and English. For me, my upbringing has shaped me to learn the basics of a country’s native language as a form of respect.

As we educated ourselves on the Māori language, it also helped us to acknowledge the history of New Zealand. As the pākehā (English, European) population became greater than the Māori population in the mid-1800s, the Māori language began to decline, usage was discouraged and there was a significant decrease in speakers. Eventually, the 1970s saw the start of the Māori renaissance to reverse language loss and fight for recognition of te reo Māori in New Zealand society. Then in September 1972, a group gathered in front of parliament and handed over the Māori Language Petition which included 30,000 signatures calling for the government’s active support and teaching of te reo Māori. After some time, Māori became an official language in 1987.

While the Māori language movement continues on in many different ways, one of them is that the month of September is the host for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week), a time to celebrate the language by practising your kōrero (speech, speaking).

On our journey to learning te reo (the language), I dove into the world wide web looking for free online resources that would get us started. Even though we used various methods of learning, one of my absolute favourites is Tōku Reo, a Māori language learning show for complete beginners and where my partner and I got our start in learning Māori. There you’ll find hundreds of episodes to watch, completely free and (in my humble opinion) delightfully cheesy at times. Although we don’t keep up a perfect streak, we commit to watching an episode every day during the month of September and have found it gives us more confidence to pronounce Māori kupu (words). Even though we wouldn’t call ourselves fluent by any means, nowadays we are surprised to find that we do know more Māori words than we realise by being exposed to them throughout the motu (country).

As soon as we arrived in Aotearoa – actually even before that, when we stepped onto the Air New Zealand plane, we saw and heard the Māori language integrated seemingly everywhere, from signage to announcements, documentation to magazines, in videos and more. We realised very quickly that we should continue our education of the Māori language if we wanted to understand what was being said in the country we had chosen to live in. Whichever way you choose to practise or integrate a little Māori into your lives, kia kaha te reo Māori – let’s make the Māori language strong!

Related links:

Want to start with some straightforward vocab? Here’s a list of 100 Māori words every New Zealander should know.

The Māori Language Commission has a well constructed and beautiful bilingual website regarding the history and revitalisation of te reo Māori. If you’re looking for statistics, news, or resources surrounding the language, this is an excellent starting point.

If you like Duolingo (sorry, can’t find Māori on there), you’ll enjoy Kōrerorero, a free app that teaches how to use te reo Māori in real life situations. It’s a fun, quick, and portable way to get in five minutes of a bit of language learning each day.

There are so many online places to learn Māori – via social media accounts, podcasts, apps, video – and this article from The Spinoff has put together a thorough list full of heaps of resources for you!

Wairere Falls, the North Island’s Highest Waterfall

As the title states, Wairere* Falls is the highest waterfall on Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island) and yet it seems to stay off the tourist map. (*Wairere literally means “water flying”; wai = water, rere = to fly, leap, race, etc.) Compared to the tourbus mecca of The Lord of the Rings’ Hobbiton found in Matamata roughly 20 kilometres away, you could say that the falls are not too obscure yet not too overrun. Instead, they have the “just right” amount of popularity you’d expect for a natural wonder with a winning height statistic that also, unsurprisingly, has winning views.

Although the Wairere Falls Track is considered an “easy walking track” category for the first 3 kilometres (approximately 45 minutes one-way), don’t let the word “easy” deceive you – I’d describe it more accurately as “heads moderately upwards”. No matter! Take your time, especially up the impressive twisted staircase at the end in order to reach the main viewing platform.

If you’re feeling particularly spry and even better if you have hiking poles, you can add on an additional 2 kilometres to your trek (another 30-45 minutes more one-way) by continuing on the much steeper “tramping track” that takes to you a worthy ending: the lip of the falls. While there’s a small viewing platform up there to achieve that perfect Instagram shot, there are many places at the top to soak in the view.

Because the waterfalls are west-facing, you may want to take into consideration the time of day you do this trek. We decided to go during the afternoon so the view of the falls would be in the sunshine and that we’d return back to the car park near sunset. Whatever time you choose, make sure to bring water and a snack or two – taking a moment for some sustenance at the top is an experience that’s hard to beat.

Want to read more?

If you’re the type who wants to know all the details about something before giving it a go, you can read a thorough first-person experience about the Wairere Falls track and all associated info on the Freewalks website

While those of us from outside of New Zealand may have heard of Matamata because it’s the location of the Hobbiton set, the town is only a 15-minute drive from Wairere Falls and has more to see and do than only dropping into the Shire .

Local Lingo: Kai & Feed

Very simply, kai is the Māori word for food or meal. It’s used quite interchangeably with its English equivalent throughout New Zealand.

Example 1:
“I’m hungry! Wanna get some kai?”

Also food related, a feed is referring to a meal – it’s used here as a noun more often than you may expect.

Example 2:
“Let’s go to Maccas for some kai!” (translation: Let’s go to McDonald’s to eat)
“Choice! I could use a mean feed right now” (translation: Awesome! I could eat a huge meal/I’m really hungry)