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Māori Language Week

Last week we visited Bernie O’Donnell and Ellyce Mcleod at Radio Waatea at the Nga Whare Waatea Marae in Favona. With Māori language week – Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori – coming up, we thought it would be a good idea to ask the experts to help us with the correct pronunciation of Māori suburb names in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland).

We recently noticed that Auckland Transport had started to play full messages on trains also both English and in te Reo. We then realised how differently people pronounced those suburbs on a daily basis, compared to their actual pronunciation.

We thought the only way to find out how they are actually pronounced was to talk to a fluent speaker of te Reo. For that reason we reached out to the team at Radio Waatea who were kind enough to agree to an interview. We gave them a list of the commonly miss-pronounced Tāmaki Makaurau suburbs and Ellyce helped us learn to pronounce them correctly:

Aotearoa
Tāmaki Makaurau
Remuera
Ōrākei
Kohimarama
Hauraki
Whangaparaoa
Ōtāhuhu
Papatoetoe
Onehunga
Māngere
Titirangi
Waitakere
Muriwai
Manurewa

We had a lot of fun during the interview but more importantly, we learned how to pronounce these suburbs correctly. You can watch our full interview with Ellyce on our youtube channel, Interview with Radio Waatea.

Thanks Bernie O’Donnell and Ellyce Mcleod.

#Māori Language Week #Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori #Radio Waatea #Nga Whare Waatea marae #Maori Language #Maori Word Pronunciation

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