this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Kia ora. Nō Australia ahau, engari he tauira hōu ō te reo Māori ahau. Kei te pēhea koutou?
Kia ora! Nō Taranaki au, engari e noho ana au ki Wellington.
I ako au te reo Māori mo e rua nga tau, engari kaore au i te pai tonu.
Kia ora, e Rewi (I've read that means Dave!) Kei te pēhea koe? Kua ako au ki te reo mō anake toru marama. Kāore tōku reo i te pai hoki!
Ka rawe! Kei te pai au. Kei te ngenge au pea.
So, one thing I've learnt it that everyone has a different opinion about everything. Oddly, the more te reo I learnt the less comfortable I was using it (as an example, when you first start learning you learn a pepeha, ko X toku maunga, ko X toku awa, etc. But the more I learnt the less comfortable I was in using this format and instead learnt other formats that avoided these kids of phrases).
So where I'm going with this is that, in my opinion, you shouldn't translate names. Your name is your name. If there's someone called Tama, when you are speaking English their name is still Tama. Therefore, I don't think you should translate Dave to Rewi. If you were learning te reo in a classroom, with enough teachers you would definitely find a difference of opinion on this! So much so that I considered not posting this, but it's written out now so I might as well post it.
I'm sorry about that, Dave. I didn't know that. I used this teaching app called Tipu at one point and it had said the translation for Dave was Rewi. I assumed it was only because of the different alphabets. I won't do that anymore. I hope it didn't annoy you too much.
I wasn't offended! Just thought I'd mention my thoughts on it.
While the Māori alphabet has less letters, it's pretty common in any language to just say words in their original language when it makes sense. For example, while most languages will have a term for New Zealand, when someone speaks e.g. French, they will probably just say "Auckland" when talking about Auckland.
I hope I haven't come across like I'm lecturing. I'm by no means an expert, my comments are intended as discussion points not as the final word on the matter.
I wholeheartedly agree! Thanks for starting these threads! They should be lots of fun. Of course you didn't come across as lecturing.
I'll get back to you on that, I'm only a few chapters into Bruce Biggs 'Let's Learn Maori'
Cool! I'm using "Māori Made Easy" by Scotty Morrison. It's very good.
He's a multi-talented guy, that Scott Morrison.