Māori words you’ll hear at work

The Māori words you’ll hear at work most often in New Zealand are hui ‘meeting’, mahi ‘work’, kōrero ‘talk’, kai ‘food’ and whānau ‘family’, and most workplaces add a few more for their meetings, their people and their values. Below are the commonest, grouped by where you will meet them, with what each one means and how it sits inside an English sentence.

Updated 16 October 2026 · 4 min read

Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Māori examples play Papa Reo, the te reo Māori voice made by Te Hiku Media from recordings of native speakers.

In meetings

Meetings are where most people first hear Māori at work. A hui may open with a karakia and a round of mihimihi before anyone gets to the agenda.

Kaupapa is the word that does most work in an office. It can mean the topic of a meeting, the purpose of a project or the principles an organisation runs on, so a kaupapa Māori service is one built on Māori principles, not just one with Māori clients.

People

Many of these begin with kai, which before a verb makes the person who does it: mahi is to work and a kaimahi is a worker, ārahi is to guide and a kaiārahi is a guide. It is the same kai as in kaiako, a teacher. How Māori builds words like these is explained in English to Māori translation.

Places and things

Pānui is two things at once: as a noun it is the newsletter, as a verb it is to read it. Hararei and rūma are loanwords from English, written with Māori sounds, and they are as much a part of the language as the older words.

Welcomes and farewells

New staff are often welcomed formally, and people who leave are farewelled the same way. These are the words for both.

Te Aka notes that for some iwi a pōwhiri is the ritual of encounter on a marae only, and that where welcome speeches are made away from the marae, the term is mihi whakatau. That is why a workplace welcoming new staff in its own building usually calls it a whakatau. If you are the one being welcomed, someone will usually tell you where to sit and whether you will be asked to speak; introducing yourself is covered in how to write a pepeha.

The values a workplace names

Many New Zealand organisations state their values in Māori. Two turn up more than any others.

Neither has a single English equivalent, which is why organisations use the Māori word. Others like them are gathered in Māori words with no English equivalent.

Short phrases you will hear

Ka pai is the one heard most around an office: as a reply to an update, a thank-you for a finished task, or simply good.

Using them inside English

• No plural s. The plural is shown by the words around a Māori noun, not by an ending: three hui, not three huis; all kaimahi, not all kaimahis.
• Keep the macrons. Rōpū, pānui and whānau are spelt with them, and a vowel with a macron is held about twice as long. How each sound is said is in the Māori pronunciation guide.
• No “the” is needed where English would not use one. Bring kai is as natural as bring food.

Going further

For the greetings and sign-offs that open and close a work email, from Kia ora to Ngā mihi, see Māori email greetings and sign-offs. For teachers who use Māori in class, see te reo for teachers. Every word on this page is in Verbavia’s te reo Māori course, free on the web.

Sources

1. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hui, mahi, kōrero, kaimahi, karakia, mihimihi and pānui.
2. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kaupapa — topic, policy, matter for discussion, plan, purpose.
3. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: whakatau — to decide, settle; to welcome officially; official welcome speeches; and mihi whakatau, the term for welcome speeches away from the marae.
4. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: pōwhiri and poroporoaki.
5. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: manaakitanga and tikanga.
6. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ka pai — good; aroha mai — sorry; tari — office, department; hararei — holiday.
7. Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori: Reo for the Office (Te reo o te tari).