Lesson 4 - Greeting people by what they are

This week's lesson is about greeting people using terms such as the following (always useful when you forget someone's name!):

kare - close friend
hine - girl (short for kōhine)
tama - boy
whaea - mother
tangata - person
pakeke - adult
wahine - woman
koroua - elderly man
tamariki - children
matua - father.

The process is the similar to greeting someone by name; if there are one or two syllables in the noun (e.g. tama) an 'e' is used, for example:

Kia ora e tama / Hi boy

If there are more than two syllables in the noun (e.g. wahine) an 'e' is not used, for example:

Tēnā koe wahine / Hello woman

Lesson 3 - Greeting someone by their name

Kia ora. When you greet someone by name in Maori, there are some simple rules to follow:

• If the name is a Maori name and has only one or two syllables, it is preceded by 'e', for example 'Kia ora e Tane'.
• If the name is a Maori name and has more than two syllabyls, the preceding 'e' isn't required, for example 'Tēnā koe Ngahuia'.
• If the name is an English name the preceding 'e' is not required, regardless of how many syllables are in the name, for example 'Kia ora Tim', and 'Tēnā koe Timothy'.