Lesson 1 - Learn Te Reo Maori - Free Language Lessons and Links

LESSON 1 - Alphabet
and Pronounciation

There are 15 letters in the Māori alphabet: A, E, H, I, K, M, N, NG, O, P, R, T, U, W, WH

Vowels:

The Māori vowels are pronounced the same as Spanish vowels.
For those of you who can't tell your Spanish vowels from your Swahili vowels, here's how they sound:

A as in CAR
E as in GET
I as in FEE T
O as in FOR
U as in DO

The same vowels mentioned above can also be lenthened by adding a line on top of the letters (a macron), or sometimes 2 dots on top (a diaeresis) and in the old days they use to double the vowels, but this is no longer done.
So for words that contain long vowels, you pronounce the vowels as double their lenth. e.g: (mata = ma-ta, mātā = maa-taa), and as well as the vowel lenth changing the meaning of words, the amount of syllables also changes. e.g: (taua = tau-a, tāua = taa-u-a).

Ever wondered why Kia ora! is pronounced as "Kee-ao-ra!" and not "Kee-ah-oo-ra!". This is because of the sacred rules of the "Flying V". A is the most open vowel, E and I are nasaly sounding vowels, pronounced with the throat closed and O and U are rounded vowels, pronounced with the lips more rounded. That's why we can say some vowels together (even between words) and some we can't.
So if your just learning how to pronounce Māori words, always keep the "Flying V" stored in your head:

I				U
	E		O
		A

As you can see A is at the bottom of the "V" and I & U are at the top. If you travel upwards from A to I & U, then you can pronounce those vowels together.
e.g: (ae, ai, ao, au, ei, eu, ou, oi).

I				U
	E		O
		A

And if you go from top to bottom, or across from each other, then you can't.
e.g: (ea, ia, oa, ua, ie, ue, uo, io, eo, oe, iu, ui)
But sometimes these vowels that don't go together, can sound like they do when spoken quickly. e.g: (Ku-a = Kwa) (Ki-a = Kya) (Ko-e = Queer) (Ku-i-ni = Quee-nee)

Constanents:

The Maori constanents are pretty-much the same as in English. With the exceptions being WH and R.

WH can be said like the English F. Although it can also be pronounced with your top teeth only lightly touching your bottom lip; like an asperated W as in "WHat"; or some dialects just use an H instead in some cases, like "poWHiri - poHiri" or "kei WHea - kei Hea".

R can be pronounced like a soft, partly rolled R and sounds like a cross between a D and an L. Also a few other letters like T, P and K can be said the same or a bit softer than in English. And remember, T & D, P & B and K & (hard)G, sound almost the same in English, exept for they are just harder & softer than each other. Oh yeah, and NG can be pronounced the same as the English ending -ing.