Near the end of June, I reached the milestone of 150 hours learning te reo Māori. My current goals are to do consistent practice, build up comprehension in reading and listening, and steadily increase my vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. I do this by immersing in native content such as movies, tv shows and books, known as comprehensible input. I get new vocabulary from this content, esp. books, and grammar is mostly learned through exposure to te reo and a podcast.
Vocab Study
I have continued learning 10 new words almost every day, and although some fail to stick, it allows me to make very good progress. These words I keep forgetting are called ’leeches’ and are removed from the Anki rotation. This is totally normal for language learning, and I will learn them again when the time comes. In total, there are almost 2000 words in my Anki (flashcard app), and I’ve also noticed and learned many patterns with prefixes, suffixes and getting hints at meaning from familiar words inside longer compound ones. It’s exciting to feel the progress and be able to understand more and more.
Grammar Study
I’m still working through the Everyday Māori podcast, which is by far the best resource I’ve used. In the later episodes (Season 2, from #60), Hēmi and Āpera use an example conversation focusing on a topic to teach the new grammar and language in it. I’m up to episode #86, and listen to it while commuting.
Pounamu Pounamu
Pounamu Pounamu is a collection of short stories by the renowned Witi Ihimaera. It was his first book, published in 1972. Kotahi Rau Pukapuka translated it into te reo Māori in 2023, with 11 collaborating kaiwhakamāori (translators) working on the 10 stories.
I got the audiobook from libro.fm which has the different people reading each story. It’s refreshing to hear different voices instead of a single one for a whole book.
I’ve read through it once so far, and am currently working through it to learn the new words in it. At the start there was usually between 5 - 8 new kupu on each page. By halfway through it, almost half of the unknown words I had marked I’ve already been learning as they were included earlier in the book.
Te Ruānuku
When I finished reading Pounamu Pounamu, I went back to Te Ruānuku and re-read it, this time in total freeflow. I am now very familiar with the storyline, and with most of the vocab in it which makes it satisfying to read. I was more focused on trying to better understand the grammar and sentence structure in te reo.
Hare Pota? Puripāha?
The other te reo novels with audiobooks are Harry Potter and The Whale Rider. Unfortunately, both their audiobooks have different licensing conditions and are much more expensive that I can’t justify buying them. However, I might get just the physical copy of Hare Pota and read it slowly, maybe 10-15 minutes out of my normal reading time, as a source of new vocab when I finish Pounamu Pounamu. I had a look into it and it feels more advanced than the two I’ve read so far, so I might have to hold back for a while.
Other Immersion
I’ve begun watching the bilingual drama show Ahikāroa, documentary series Waka Huia and (half of) Shrek: Kātahi te Korokē. Forgot what day it was and TVNZ+ removed it before I was done. This only accounts for 3 or 4 hours of the last 50 because most of my time was spent reading. In the next 50 hours, I want to focus more on content with natural speech (rather than audiobooks) to improve my ability to parse and try to understand what is said better. Will try find a range of shows, as well as listen to some reo irirangi Māori (radio).