Te reo Māori quiz: 30 questions with answers

Greetings and phrases

1. What does kia ora mean, literally?

   1. Be well
   2. Sit down
   3. See you later
   4. Come here
   Answer

   A: Be well. Te Aka gives its literal meaning as be well. It is used for hello and for thank you, to any number of people. More in Māori greetings and sign-offs.

2. You are greeting two people formally. What do you say?

   1. Tēnā koe
   2. Tēnā kōrua
   3. Tēnā koutou
   4. Haere rā
   Answer

   B: Tēnā kōrua. Kōrua is you two. Tēnā koe is for one person, tēnā koutou for three or more, and haere rā is goodbye. See why Māori has a word for “you two”.

3. You are leaving a friend’s house. What do you say to your friend, who is staying?

   1. Haere rā
   2. Haere mai
   3. E noho rā
   4. Mōrena
   Answer

   C: E noho rā. E noho rā is said to the person who stays. Haere rā is said to the person who leaves, so on your way out it tells your host to go; haere mai is welcome. More goodbyes in common Māori phrases.

4. Which phrase means sorry?

   1. Tēnā koa
   2. Aroha mai
   3. Ka pai
   4. Kāo
   Answer

   B: Aroha mai. Aroha mai is sorry, or excuse me. Tēnā koa is please, ka pai is good and kāo is no. All four are in common Māori phrases.

5. What is someone asking when they say Kei te pēhea koe?

   1. How are you?
   2. What is your name?
   3. Where are you from?
   4. How old are you?
   Answer

   A: How are you? It asks one person how they are, and the usual answer is Kei te pai, fine. To two people it is Kei te pēhea kōrua? See good morning, good night and how are you.

Numbers, days and colours

6. What number is tekau mā rua?

   1. 2
   2. 12
   3. 20
   4. 102
   Answer

   B: 12. Tekau is ten, mā joins the next number on, and rua is two: ten and two. Twenty is rua tekau, two tens. See Māori numbers, days and months.

7. Which word means seven?

   1. rima
   2. waru
   3. whitu
   4. iwa
   Answer

   C: whitu. Whitu is seven; rima is five, waru eight and iwa nine. Count from one to a million in Māori numbers.

8. Which day of the week is Rāhina?

   1. Monday
   2. Wednesday
   3. Friday
   4. Sunday
   Answer

   A: Monday. Te Aka explains that Rāhina joins rā, day, to māhina, an old word for the moon, shortened: the moon’s day, like Monday. Wednesday is Rāapa, Friday Rāmere and Sunday Rātapu. See the days of the week.

9. What colour is kākāriki?

   1. Green
   2. Yellow
   3. Red
   4. Blue
   Answer

   A: Green. Kākāriki is green, and also the native parakeets, small green parrots. Yellow is kōwhai, red whero and blue kahurangi. See Māori colours.

10. Which word means black?

    1. whero
    2. kahurangi
    3. mā
    4. pango
    Answer

    D: pango. Pango is black, and mangu is another word for it. Whero is red, mā white and kahurangi blue. See Māori colours.

Family and people

11. What does whānau mean?

    1. Mountain
    2. House
    3. Family
    4. Canoe
    Answer

    C: Family. Te Aka gives extended family, family group, and as a verb to be born. A house is whare, a mountain maunga and a canoe waka. See Māori family words.

12. Who is your mokopuna?

    1. Your grandmother
    2. Your grandchild
    3. Your uncle
    4. Your parent
    Answer

    B: Your grandchild. A mokopuna is a grandchild, and more widely a descendant. A grandmother is kuia and a parent matua. See children and grandchildren.

13. One child is tamaiti. What are two or more children?

    1. tamariki
    2. tūpuna
    3. mātua
    4. kuia
    Answer

    A: tamariki. Te Aka marks tamaiti as singular only; the plural is tamariki. Tūpuna are ancestors, mātua parents, and a kuia is an elderly woman. See Māori family words.

14. What does a woman call her older sister?

    1. tuahine
    2. teina
    3. tungāne
    4. tuakana
    Answer

    D: tuakana. Tuakana is an older sibling of the same sex and teina a younger one. Tungāne is a woman’s brother and tuahine a man’s sister. See brother and sister in Māori.

15. What is an iwi?

    1. A greeting
    2. A meeting house
    3. A tribe, a large kinship group
    4. A parent
    Answer

    C: A tribe, a large kinship group. Te Aka: an extended kinship group, tribe or nation, often descended from a common ancestor and linked to a territory. A meeting house is a wharenui. See whānau, hapū and iwi.

Place names and pronunciation

16. What is the usual translation of Aotearoa?

    1. Land of many mountains
    2. Land of the long white cloud
    3. The great harbour
    4. The northern sea
    Answer

    B: Land of the long white cloud. From ao, cloud, tea, white, and roa, long. It is the most popular reading, not the only one, and the name first belonged to the North Island. See what Aotearoa means.

17. Rotorua is roto, lake, and rua, two. What do the sources say it means?

    1. Second lake, or two lakes
    2. Hot water
    3. Big mountain
    4. Long harbour
    Answer

    A: Second lake, or two lakes. The New Zealand Gazetteer gives second lake and NZHistory two lakes. See Māori place names and what they mean.

18. Read word by word, what does Kaikōura mean?

    1. Long beach
    2. White cliffs
    3. Whale bay
    4. Eat crayfish
    Answer

    D: Eat crayfish. Kai is to eat and kōura crayfish. The Gazetteer’s fuller account is that it shortens a longer name about a fire where crayfish were cooked. See Māori place names.

19. How is wh usually said in most of New Zealand today, as in whare?

    1. Like th in thin
    2. Like English v
    3. Like English f
    4. It is silent
    Answer

    C: Like English f. Whare begins like far. It is the majority sound, not the only one: in the far north a breathy hw is common too. See the Māori pronunciation guide.

20. How many letters are in the Māori alphabet?

    1. 10
    2. 15
    3. 20
    4. 26
    Answer

    B: 15. Fifteen: five vowels, eight single consonants (h k m n p r t w) and two pairs, ng and wh, that each stand for one sound. See the Māori pronunciation guide.

Culture: haka, marae, Matariki

21. Who composed the haka Ka Mate?

    1. Te Rauparaha
    2. Derek Lardelli
    3. Wayne Shelford
    4. Tana Umaga
    Answer

    A: Te Rauparaha. Te Rauparaha, a chief of Ngāti Toa Rangatira, as the Haka Ka Mate Attribution Act 2014 records. Derek Lardelli composed the All Blacks’ other haka, Kapa o Pango, first performed under Tana Umaga in 2005. See the words of Ka Mate.

22. On a marae, what is the marae ātea?

    1. The meeting house itself
    2. The dining hall
    3. The gateway
    4. The open courtyard in front of the meeting house
    Answer

    D: The open courtyard in front of the meeting house. It is where visitors are formally welcomed. The dining hall is the wharekai, the gateway the waharoa and the meeting house the wharenui. See the parts of a marae.

23. What is a pōwhiri?

    1. A cloak
    2. A farewell speech
    3. A welcome ceremony
    4. A canoe race
    Answer

    C: A welcome ceremony. Te Aka: an invitation, the rituals of encounter, a welcome ceremony on a marae. See pōwhiri explained.

24. Matariki is the Māori name for which star cluster?

    1. The Southern Cross
    2. The Pleiades
    3. Orion’s Belt
    4. The Milky Way
    Answer

    B: The Pleiades. Its rising before dawn in midwinter marks the Māori New Year for many iwi; some look to the star Puanga, Rigel, instead. See Matariki explained.

25. On which day of the week does the Matariki public holiday always fall?

    1. Monday
    2. Wednesday
    3. Friday
    4. Sunday
    Answer

    C: Friday. Te Kāhui o Matariki Public Holiday Act 2022 sets it on a Friday in June or July; in 2027 it is Friday 25 June. Every date is in the Matariki guide.

Tricky ones: macrons and false friends

26. Keke is cake. What is kēkē, with macrons?

    1. Also cake
    2. A parrot
    3. A basket
    4. Armpit
    Answer

    D: Armpit. Te Aka gives kēkē as armpit (and, as a verb, to quack); keke is a loan from English cake. A macron makes a different word, which is why it is worth learning to type macrons.

27. Mate looks like the English word for a friend. What does it mean in Māori?

    1. A friend
    2. Food
    3. Dead, sick or defeated
    4. Hello
    Answer

    C: Dead, sick or defeated. Te Aka: to be dead, sick or defeated, and as a noun death or illness. A friend is a hoa: see how to say friend in Māori.

28. Wahine is woman. What does wāhine mean?

    1. Men
    2. Women
    3. Children
    4. A wedding
    Answer

    B: Women. A few nouns make their plural by lengthening a vowel: wāhine, women; tāngata, people; mātua, parents. See what a macron does.

29. Which of these is the native forest parrot?

    1. kākā
    2. kaka
    3. kakā
    4. kāka
    Answer

    A: kākā. Te Aka: kākā is the parrot, kaka a garment (or a plant stalk), kakā hot or inflamed, and kāka the Australasian bittern. Only the macrons tell them apart. More birds in Māori birds and animals.

30. Which of these everyday Māori words was borrowed from English?

    1. aroha
    2. whānau
    3. maunga
    4. mōrena
    Answer

    D: mōrena. Mōrena, good morning, comes from English morning, and Te Aka marks it as a loan. The others are Māori words. See English words in Māori.

0 of 30 answered