Yeah so kia ora bro and welcome to New Zealand!“Nau Mai Haere mai ki te wai o Aotearoa”
Aotearoa (New Zealand) is a bi cultural (some would argue that it is also bi polar) island nation consisting of TWO PEOPLE, TWO ISLANDS and TWO VERSIONS of HISTORY. We have THREE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES -
- English which is widely used by the majority of the poplualion,
- Te Reo Maori - a language revived and reviving although it’s mostly spoken by Tangata Whenua (Maori) and cheerfully mispronounced by Non Maori. (Pakeha)
With a set up like that you would imagine that the third official language of this country is the lawyers language but in fact its more ironic than that, our third official language is Sign Language!
The fourth and unofficial language of New Zealand is the colloquial, the poetic, the slang that has arisen from a dispirit bunch of people floating on an island in the heart of the South Pacific. But first some pronunciation lessons.
Lesson 1: Intonation
The first thing to change when speaking like a kiwi is your intonation: end every sentence as if you’re asking a question. Fullstops are very final in New Zealand, and often give the impression of End Of Conversation, rather than End of Sentence. (Making every sentence sound like a question makes you sound cheerful)Lesson 2: Accent for English Speakers
Now that you have the basics of intonation, we can start to focus on your accent. Don’t be intimidated by the Kiwi accent, it’s pretty easy to pick up. The trick is in your vowels.
A becomes E: “Now thet I hev your ettention, lets get beck to the lesson, ay?“
E becomes EE: “I’ll be there in teen meenuts”
I becomes U: “Lets go get some fush and chups bro”
*UNLESS it’s pronounce ‘I’ as in ‘Ice’, the it becomes ‘OI’ as in, “Oi’ll just pop down to the dairy and puk us up some fush end chups.” I is a tricky letter mate.
O stays the same and so does U
Lesson 3 : How to pronounce Maori Vowels
The following English equivalents are a rough guide to pronouncing vowels in Māori:
a as in far
e as in desk and the first ‘e’ in where; it should be short and sharp
i as in fee, me, see
o as in awe (not ‘oh!’)
u as in sue, boot
There are fewer consonants, and only a few are different from English:
r should not be rolled. It is pronounced quite close to the sound of ‘l’ in English, with the tongue near the front of the mouth.
t is pronounced more like ‘d’ than ‘t’, with the tip of the tongue slightly further back from the teeth
wh counts as a consonant; the standard modern pronunciation is close to the ‘f’ sound. In some districts it is more like an ‘h’; in others more like a ‘w’ without the ‘h’; in others again more like the old aspirated English pronunciation of ‘wh’ (‘huence’ for whence)
ng counts as a consonant and is pronounced like the ‘ng’ in ‘singer’. It is not pronounced like the ‘ng’ in ‘finger’, i.e., Whāngārei is pronounced Far-n(g)ah-ray (not Fong-gah-ray); Tauranga is pronounced Tow- (to rhyme with sew) rah-n(g)ah (not Tow-rang-gah).
A LIST OF WORDS YOU WILL COMMONLY HEAR
BRO Maori and some Non Maori greet each other in this manner. Often used when you have forgotten the name of the person being addressed.
CHOICE means awesome or good
CHUR Chur can be used as thanks, as in “Chur Bro” or as a greeting “Chur Bro” or to describe an event, person or feed as in “Yeah Nah, it was pretty chur”. If you want to sound really cool to a Maori person say “Chur Chur bro” and top it off with a lift of the eyebrows, Maori Styles.
CUZ Maori like to do a lot of whakapapa which means we are always searching out cousins all over the islands and often find them!
DAIRY A local store selling milk and newspapers, etc
HAKA (M) War dance, a dance that describes a battle
HONGI (M) A greeting whereby the breath of life is shared
HARD CASE A unique and or amusing person
JANDALS Flip Flops
KIA ORA (M) a greeting
KAI (M) Maori are very keen to feed their guests and will often invite for a kai as in “Come home for a FEED BRO.”
KORERO (M) To talk, discuss
KAPAI (M). very good!
MOKOPUNA (M) Grandchild.
PAKEHA (M) Non Maori, white people
PUKANA (M) A greeting when a Maori person pokes his tongue at you and makes their eyeballs bulge
SAUCE Ketchup
SWEET AS Means NO WORRIES MATE
TANGI (M) Funeral, to cry
TAMAARIKI (M) Chilldren
TREKKING Hiking
YEAH NAH Means yes.
WHANAU Immediate family members, extending out to first cousins
HAPU Tribe consisting of extended family members
IWI A coalition of tribes who all share one eponymous ancestor.
WHAKAPAPA Ancestral lines, the art of discovering you are related to half the country
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