I have had an interest in learning te reo Māori for quite a while, although I did not commit to learning it until recently. I had a few of the learning apps, but not much driving me to actually study with them.
Two months before the Christmas holiday break of last year, I made a decision to begin learning te reo and purchased Māori Made Easy by Scotty Morrison. It’s a brilliant grammar book designed to take no more than 30 minutes to complete each day’s exercises, and I recommend it to anyone learning te reo.
However, an exercise book alone is not going to teach you a language.
I researched language learning methods, but this blog post does not exist to explain or convince you to use the methods I have chosen. Everyone learns differently, and no one ‘method’ will work for everyone. For context, here are a few resources I used to learn how to learn languages:
The main takeaway is the focus on ‘Comprehensible Input’ (CI) - content which you can (mostly) comprehend, but which is above your current ability so that it makes you learn. It is also called Cognitive Immersion, where you immerse your brain (cognitive) in the target language in order to naturally acquire it, similar to how young children learn their first language.
Comprehensible Input is also paired with learning the most common vocabulary and grammar structures, and utilizing tools such as digital flashcards to make the most out of your time immersing. Little time is spent practising speaking or writing in the language until one has a strong foundation and natural instinct for the language. The Refold Method (linked above) details a guide for approaching this, split into stages, each one with explanations and suggestions.
There are definitely some (minor?) flaws to the guide itself, but it’s still valuable as a resource for language learning and keeping on the right track.
The beginning
I purchased the Māori Made Easy (MME) book on the 23rd of October, 2024, which is the date I am counting from as the ‘beginning’ of my reo journey. It’s when I actually committed to learning it. A couple weeks after that was when I consolidated what I know about language learning (above) and set up some systems and habits.
At the start I was able to complete 2 or 3 lessons in half an hour (as opposed to 1). The book is designed for people who aren’t doing much else except for it, so with all my extra study it becomes much easier.
Anki is an app which uses digital flashcards and a complicated algorithm to optimise reviewing and memorising vocabulary. It’s an example of a Spaced Repetition System (SRS). I got it set up and added vocab from MME to it, but after a few weeks realised that without any context, isolated words are hard to remember and don’t stick very well. So I use a few sources to find example sentences for each kupu - this includes sentences in the book, Kupu o te Rā, Tatoeba, Te Aka Dictionary and another dictionary.
See Spaced Repetition: How to make it stick and The Role of Anki for more information about why and how to use a Spaced Repetition System (SRS) such as Anki for language learning.
One of the goals in the beginning is learning the most common 1000 words. I found a frequency list for te reo Māori, and am creating flashcards for the words in that list with example sentences from above.
What I’m doing now
It is now Day 100, so here’s a brief summary of what I’m doing. Most days I spend about an hour, usually two on weekends.
Māori Made Easy: Most days (including weekends) I will complete 1 or 2 day’s worth of lessons, or whatever I can do in 15 minutes.
Learning kīwaha and whakataukī: Māori Made Easy introduces 3 kīwaha (colloquialisms) each ‘week’, which I add to Anki and learn. They also have a whakataukī each week, and I will add them and begin learning them soon. That’s all probably enough, but in the future I may search for sources such as local iwi for common whakataukī from my area.
Everyday Māori Podcast: Run by Hēmi Kelly and Āpera Woodfine, this is an extremely valuable resource created to teach Māori to use in everyday situations. I use it to get an overview of all the new sentence and grammar structures, and note down example sentences to integrate into Anki so I get used to many types of sentences. I’m up to episode 51 out of 111 - listen to it here.
Anki flashcard reviewing: Every day I review my Anki flashcards, which takes an average of 7 minutes per day.
Anki flashcard creation: I am creating enough flashcards to have 10 new kupu per day. To make 10 takes around 20 minutes. I currently have 661 cards, and am at 400 in the frequency list (because many words are from MME or immersion).
Darwin & Newts: A children’s tv show in te reo with very basic language. For each episode I do it first as Free-Flow Immersion, then again as Intensive Immersion. Each one is 10 minutes long and has around 6 - 10 new kupu in it (which I add to Anki).
Disney Reo Māori: The four available Disney dubs (Lion King, Frozen, Moana, Coco) in te reo Māori. I know the stories very well from the English versions, which allows me to focus on the reo in them rather than understanding the story. I either have the films on in the background (passive listening) or watch them (active). I tried Intensive with them, but I currently don’t know enough to make that worth it or useful - especially because there are no subtitles.
Reading: Lute (Learning Using TExts) is a free software python program which I use to practise reading in te reo. It is amazing and I will write more about it some other time. Currently I’ve been reading translated news articles and articles from the Kōkiri Putanga magazine.
Most months I will write an update blogpost. I also post occasionally about this on Mastodon, so follow me there if you’re interested.