Learning Māori Through Reading

I've been reading about language learning via the natural approach, and decided to try writing some simple examples to help learn basic concepts.

The idea behind the natural approach is to have simple content that is entirely in the target language, but at a level that is just above the level of the reader. Grammar is not explicitly explained, but rather demonstrated through immersion in the content. My first attempt is below, comments welcome.

The images in this post were created with the assistance of AI, interacting with DALL-E 2 to iterate towards a suitable image.

ko ngā manu me te kiore

Kaiako: He manu te kererū. He aha te kererū?

Tauira: He manu.

Kaiako: He manu te tīrairaka?

Tauira: Āe, he manu.

Kaiako: He manu te kererū me te tīrairaka. He aha te kiore?

Tauira: He kararehe.

Kaiako: He manu te kiore?

Tauira: Kāo, he kararehe te kiore.

Kaiako: He manu nui te kererū. He manu nui te tīrairaka?

Tauira: Kāo, he manu iti.

Kaiako: He nui ake te kēreru i te tīrairaka?

Tauira: Aē, he nui ake.

Kaiako: He nui ake te tīrairaka i te kererū?

Tauira: Kāo, he iti ake te tīrairaka i te kererū.

Commentary

The reading exercise starts with how to describe what something is. In this case, a kererū, a tīrairaka and a kiore. The grammar for the structure breaks down this way:

To ask the question, "what is X", we use the question word "aha":

The answer repeats the question, replacing "aha" with the response:

To list more than one item in the "<object>" part of the statement, we use "me" for the equivalent of "and" in English:

We can add a describing word to the "<what it is>" portion of the statement to further describe it. This appears after the "<what it is>":

We can compare an object to see if it is more or less of a particular aspect compared to another object. To say something is more of a particular aspect:

To say something is less of a particular aspect: