Building a te reo Māori immersion environment
If you're not surrounded by te reo Māori speakers it can be difficult to immerse. Create an environment of content in te reo Māori to listen to whenever you have some free time.
An important factor in successfully learning a language is listening to a lot of content in that language. If you're not surrounded by te reo Māori speakers it can be difficult to immerse. One way around this is to create an "immersion environment" - always have content in te reo Māori available to listen to whenever you have some free time, or have it playing in the background while you are doing other tasks.
I listen to te reo Māori podcasts while driving in the car. I like to treat my car as a space for immersion in te reo Māori - either via waiata or podcasts. Here are some te reo Māori only podcasts I listen to:
A Māori Podcast - This is a weekly podcast in te reo Māori by Ihira. It covers grammar, whakataukī, games, and readings from old Māori newspapers. There is also a patreon page about the podcast.
Whakamīere - This podcast regularly publishes translations of Aesop's Fables, Winnie the Pooh and other well known literature. They also have a Patreon page.
Whakamāori - A panel of translators discuss translations into Māori of various resources. Hear their thought processes of why they chose particular ways of translating things. The resources they choose to translate are varied - Movie quotes, slogans, the Shortland Street theme, Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, etc. At the time of writing this post there are three seasons.
Radio Waatea News - Radio Waatea have their news broadcasts in te reo Māori available online. They are only about five minutes long and are a good way to get an overview in Māori of what's happening in Te Ao Māori. Unfortunately they don't have a podcast compatible RSS feed but you can listen via the website and download the audio.
Te Karare - Another daily te reo Māori news program, this one from TVNZ. They have short snippets of each topic but also have the full episode. I don't know of a way to get a podcast player compatible RSS feed from YouTube itself but services like PodTube can produce one for any YouTube channel.
Taringa - Although not completely in te reo Māori, except for special episodes, there's plenty of content in te reo in each episode, discussing kīwaha, whakataukī, iwi history, grammar, etc.
Aside from podcasts there is plenty of other content available to watch or listen. I prefer to listen so I can do other things at the same time. I want to create a constant environment of immersion. I find listening rather than watching also activates the imagination allowing an association between the Māori words and the "feeling" of the meaning rather than trying to translate.
Māori+ has a lot of content in te reo Māori - I like to listen to the audio of shows like Ōpaki or Ako to get immersion as well as learning the language. As a bonus, Ako has PDF worksheets available summarising key points of the episodes.
Disney+ has te reo Māori dubs of some popular Disney movies. Moana, The Lion King, Coco, Frozen and others. In New Zealand these are found as seperate movie listings for the reo Māori versions, but in other countries listings the dub may be found in the "Extras" tab of the movie description. You'll even find a Tahitian dub for Moana there!
Kura Productions - A Māori production company based in Auckand, on YouTube they have a number of series of te reo Māori programs.
As well as listening in the car, if you have a podcast or audio player on your phone, take the opportunity to listen to some te reo Māori content when you have downtime or are doing tasks that don't require your full attention. Doing housework, dishes, resting, etc are all great times to listen to something.
Some of the content I've listed is useful for beginner learners and some for more advanced learners. Remember that you don't need to understand all the content. The idea is to tune your ears to the sounds of the reo, pick out words and structures you understand and try and get the gist of what is happening. Get used to not understanding every single word. Being resilient to uncertainty is an important language learning skill!
Do you know any other te reo Maori immersive content? Let me know!