The best apps to learn te reo Māori, compared

Our pick is Verbavia, the only app here that is free in full and teaches te reo Māori as a course to a named level, B1, with the grammar explained. Asalei and uTalk are the best of the rest for recorded native-speaker audio, Kōrerorero is a good free start in spoken Māori, and Drops and Ling suit vocabulary practice.

Updated 6 October 2026 · 9 min read

The best te reo Māori apps at a glance

We looked at every app we could find that teaches te reo Māori and checked each one against its maker’s own website or app-store listing in October 2026. Prices change, and app-store prices are set country by country, so the figures below are the ones each maker listed when we checked. Where a maker does not say something, such as what level a course reaches, the table says “not stated” rather than guessing.

Two more apps are worth having beside any of these, though neither is a course: the Te Aka Māori Dictionary app and Kupu, both covered at the end. Duolingo is not in the table because it has no Māori course; the story of the one it announced is in is te reo Māori on Duolingo.

How we compared them

Four things decide whether an app will take you anywhere in te reo Māori:

• Depth. A list of words is not a language. The question is whether the app teaches you to build sentences of your own, which means teaching grammar: the particles that mark time, the order of a Māori sentence, and the two kinds of possession.
• Audio. Māori spelling is regular, but vowel length changes meaning, so you need to hear the words said properly. We noted whether a maker says its audio is recorded by native speakers, made by a synthetic voice, or does not say.
• Level. Whether the app says how far it takes you, and where that is.
• Price. What you can do for free, and what a subscription costs.

We have not invented scores or star ratings, and we do not quote download counts. Everything below is what each maker says about its own app, plus what follows from it.

1. Verbavia: best for a complete course, free

Verbavia’s te reo Māori course is a daily lesson that runs from your first word to B1, the intermediate level of the Common European Framework. All 311 lessons are written by hand, with no AI-generated lessons; after the last one, the daily lesson goes back over the B1 material. Words arrive in the order of how often they are used (the whole list is at the most common Māori words), and the grammar is explained in plain English rather than left for you to infer. Each lesson has reading, listening and writing sections.

Every Māori example plays in Papa Reo, the te reo voice that Te Hiku Media built from recordings of native speakers. It is free on the web and works in any browser, including on a phone. Verbavia Premium costs US$4 a month with a 7-day trial and removes the five-second house ad before a lesson and the limit of one language at a time; the course itself is the same with or without it.

Its limits. It stops at B1. There is no speaking section that listens to you, so it will not check your pronunciation. Papa Reo is a synthetic voice, even though it comes from native speakers’ recordings, so if you want to hear real people talking, Asalei, uTalk and Kōrerorero have that and Verbavia does not. There is no iPhone app yet, though the web version works in a phone’s browser.

2. Asalei: best for recorded audio and a Pacific focus

Asalei is built in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, and teaches seven languages, most of them Pacific ones, including Cook Islands Māori, Samoan and Tongan. Its te reo course is a beginner course in short lessons: greetings and replies, family and the basics of a pepeha, numbers, days and time, places around the home, asking questions, feelings, and sentence patterns that come up again and again. It describes its audio as “native verified”, with every word “checked by real speakers”, and weaves in cultural cues about when and how to say things.

It is free to start. Free use runs on “energy”; Asalei Plus gives unlimited energy, unlimited practice and streak protection, at NZ$12.99 a month or NZ$69.99 a year on the web, with a 7-day free trial in the mobile app. Its limits: the te reo course it describes is a beginner one, and it does not say how far the course goes beyond that.

3. uTalk: best for recorded native speakers and offline use

uTalk is made in London and offers more than 150 languages, and its Māori course is built on games: you learn words and phrases by topic, then review the ones you got wrong. Its voices, it says, are real native speakers, one male and one female, and you can record yourself to compare. It works offline once a course is downloaded, on phones, tablets and computers.

Plans for Māori were NZ$10.99 a month, NZ$46.99 for six months or NZ$64.99 a year when we checked from New Zealand, with a 28-day money-back guarantee. Its limits: its page describes words and phrases rather than grammar lessons, and what you reach as basic, practical spoken skills.

4. Kōrerorero: best free start in spoken Māori

Kōrerorero was made at Auckland University of Technology by Te Ara Poutama, its Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development, with the university’s altLAB team. It teaches spoken te reo rather than written, through listening, repetition and phrases for real situations: eight lessons, each built around something you would do in a typical day, with up to ten parts each. AUT says its staff and their whānau gave their time to record the voiceovers. It is free, with no cost to the learner.

Its limits: eight lessons is a start, not a course, and the app was last updated in April 2023 on both the App Store and Google Play. That update added a setting to switch the English translations off, which is worth using once the phrases are familiar.

5. Drops: best for quick vocabulary

Drops offers Māori among more than 55 languages. It teaches words and short phrases through pictures and quick games, and says its courses are made with language experts and voice artists. You can use it free for a limited time each day; Premium removes the time limit and ads and lets you learn offline. Its premium page listed $11 a month, $69.99 a year after 7 free days, or $150 for a one-time purchase, without naming the currency.

Its limits: its Māori page describes words and phrases, not grammar lessons, and it does not state a level. It works best beside a course.

6. Ling: best if you also learn other languages

Ling lists Māori among its languages and describes a path from pronunciation and greetings to reading, dialogues and flashcards, with lessons “built by native speakers” and native audio. The free version has limited lessons, limited dialogue practice and ads. Ling Pro unlocks every lesson and every language: $16.99 a month, $64.99 for six months, or $149.99 a year, which was offered at $89.99, with a 7-day free trial; the page does not name the currency.

Its limits: its Māori page does not say how many Māori lessons there are or what level they reach. A subscription makes most sense if you want several languages.

7. Māori Universe: a free web app for the basics and culture

Māori Universe describes itself as a free app for learning te reo Māori: the alphabet, numbers, greetings, whakataukī (proverbs), karakia, grammar and culture. It runs in a web browser. Its limits: it does not say who voices its audio, whether there is any, or what level it reaches, so we cannot compare it on those.

Two companions: a dictionary and a camera

The Te Aka Māori Dictionary app, published by the Te Murumāra Foundation, is the companion to the Te Aka website. It has more than 24,000 Māori headwords, example sentences with translations for many of them, explanations of grammar items and idioms, and an offline dictionary for when you have no connection. It cost NZ$6.99 on the App Store and NZ$5.29 on Google Play in October 2026; the website is free.

Kupu, from Spark, is free: point your phone’s camera at an everyday object and it gives you the Māori word, using Google technology and the Te Aka dictionary. Spark itself says it may not get it right every time. It is a fun way to collect words around the house, not a way to learn the language.

Which te reo Māori app should you choose?

• You want to actually learn the language, for free: Verbavia. It is the one here that sets out a full course to a named level, B1, explains the grammar, and costs nothing.
• You want to hear real people above all: Asalei or uTalk, which both say their Māori audio comes from native speakers. Pair either with a course that explains the grammar.
• You want to start speaking a few everyday phrases this week, for free: Kōrerorero.
• You want five minutes of vocabulary on the bus: Drops, or Ling if you learn other languages too.
• You need to look a word up: the Te Aka Māori Dictionary, on any of the above.

Apps are one route among several. If you are weighing them against classes and wānanga, the best way to learn te reo Māori sets them side by side, and free Māori courses lists the ones that cost nothing. To see how many words each stage takes, read how many Māori words you need, and to measure where you are now, take the Māori vocabulary test.

Sources

1. Asalei: Learn Te Reo Māori
2. Asalei Plus: pricing
3. uTalk: Learn Māori
4. uTalk: Māori plans
5. AUT: New app to learn te reo Māori (Kōrerorero), 14 September 2020
6. Kōrerorero on the App Store
7. Kōrerorero on Google Play
8. Drops: Learn Māori
9. Drops Premium
10. Ling: Learn Māori
11. Ling: pricing
12. Māori Universe
13. Te Aka Māori Dictionary
14. Te Aka Māori Dictionary on the App Store
15. Te Aka Māori Dictionary on Google Play
16. Kupu on the App Store
17. Kupu on Google Play