Lesson 2

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“Today I am sick, but tomorrow I will be well”

Adjectival Sentences part 2

In the first lesson we looked at how to form simple sentences about how you, or someone else, might be:

Kei te pai ahau.
I am good.

I te pai ahau.
I was good.

Ka pai ahau.
I will be good.

Kei te āwangawaga koe.
You are worried.

I tino hiakia ia.
He/she is very hungry.

Ka āhua pukumahi a Rangi.
Rangi will be somewhat busy.

We can be slightly more specific about when something happened, or will happen, by saying things like: “I am well this morning”, or “you will be tired tonight”, or “yesterday, I was sick”, or “next year I will be happy”.

Here are some words to learn which talk about when something happened or will happen:

i tēnēi rā
today

inaianei
now

i tēnēi ata
this morning

i tēnēi pō
tonight

āpōpō
tomorrow

inanahi
yesterday

inapō
last night

i tērā wiki
last week

a tērā wiki
next week

Note that two of the words – inaianei (“now”) and inanahi (“yesterday”) are very similar, and you might be inclined to get them confused!

We use these words after any of the statements that we have already learned how to create. For example:

Kei te pai ahau i tēnēi rā.
I am good today.

I te pai ahau i tēnēi ata.
I was good this morning.

Ka pai ahau āpōpō.
I will be good tomorrow.

Kei te āwangawaga koe inaianei.
You are worried now.

I tino hiakia ia i tēnēi pō.
He/she is very hungry tonight.

Ka āhua pukumahi a Rangi a tērā wiki.
Rangi will be somewhat busy next week.

I āhua pukumahi a Rangi i tērā wiki.
Rangi was somewhat busy last week.

Note the difference between a tērā wiki (“next week”) and i tērā wiki (“last week). If you have learned that i at the start of a sentence means “in the past” (eg i pai ahau, “I was good”), then you may be able to remember that i refers to the past, and so i tērā wiki refers to a week in the past, therefore “last week”. (This may or may not help!)

We have met three tenses so far – present (kei te), past (i) and future (ka). There is another one we can add: kua, which is always translated with the word “have”, “has” or “had”. It is used to refer to something in the past, like i, but it generally relates to a completed action – something that has happened. For example, if we wanted to say “I have won Lotto!” in te reo, we would use the word kua.

The difference between i and kua is a subtle one, and even in English the various past tenses can be tricky. (For example, can you explain the difference between “I sang a song”, “I have sung a song”, “I was singing a song” and “I had sung a song”?)

Whether we use i or kua to refer to something in the past probably depends on the context. For example, someone might be asked: “Have you ever been sad?” And they might respond: “Yes! I have been sad. I was sad when my dog died.”

Kua pōuri au.
I have been sad.

I pōuri au.
I was happy.

The difference, again, is subtle, but the rule is that kua is always translated with “have”, “had” or “has”. Here are some examples:

Kua pai ahau i tēnēi rā.
I have been good today.

Kua āwangawaga koe.
You have been worried.

Kua tino hiakia ia.
He/she has been very hungry.

Kua āhua pukumahi a Rangi.
Rangi has been somewhat busy.

The next thing we can add to our sentence building is to join two sentences together. For example, in English, we can say things like “I am happy but you are sad”, or “he is hungry and he is thirsty”, or “Rangi is hardworking, therfore he is thirsty”.

English uses words like “and”, “but” and “because” to join two phrases together, and te reo Māori does the same:

engari
but

ā
and

nō reira
therefore

In English, we could say something like: “I am angry. I am hungry. I am thirsty”. While this is grammatically correct, usually, we could join these smaller sentences into a longer one and say: “I am angry because I am hungry and thirsty.” The same is true in te reo.

Kei te hiakai ahau. Kei te hiainu ahau. Kei te riri ahau.
I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am angry.

Kei te hiakai ahau, ā, kei te hiainu ahau, nō reira, kei te riri ahau.
I am hungry and I am thirsty, therefore, I am angry.

We can join two sentences that talk about two different points in time, for example: “I was sad in the past, but I am happy now.” For example:

I pōuri ahau i tēnēi wiki, engari, kei te harikoa tenēi rā.
I was sad last week, but I am happy today.

Or, if you want to practice using the confusingly similar words inanahi (“yesterday”) and inaianei (“now”) you could say:

I pōuri ahau inanahi, engari, kei te harikoa ahau inaianei .
I was sad yesterday, but I am happy now.

We can also join two sentences that talk about different people:

Kei te pōuri a Mere, engari, kei te harikoa a Rangi.
Mere is sad, but Rangi is happy.

I māuiui a Hōni, engari, i ora a Hēmi.
Hōni was sick, but Hēmi was well.

And we can use nō reira to describe how one thing causes another. For example:

I māuiui a Hōni, nō reira, i pōuri a Mere.
Hōni was sick, therefore Mere was sad.

There are, of course, any number of variations on these ideas and, even with the small handful of words we have learnt so far, there are literally thousands of different sentences that could be created. Here are just a few more:

Kua māuiui ahau, engari, kei te ora ahau tēnēi rā.
I have been sick, but I am well today.

Kei te harikoa a Rangi, ā, kei te tino ora ia.
Rangi was happy, and he is very well.

Ka harikoa koe, nō reira, ka harikoa ahau.
You will be happy, therefore, I will be happy.

We can now add some more adjectives to expand our vocabulary. (We will be adding new words with every lesson.) Here is a list of adjectives to learn:

āwangawanga – worried
harikoa – happy
hiainu – thirsty
hiakai – hungry
hiamoe – sleepy
iti – small
kaha – strong
makariri – cold
mākona – satisfied
māharahara – anxious
māngere – lazy
maroke – dry
māuiui – sick
matekai – starving
mokemoke – lonely
ngenge – tired
ngāwari – easy going
nui – big
ohorere – surprised
ora – healthy/well
pai – good
paru – dirty
poto – short
pōuri – sad
pukumahi – busy/hard-working
pukuriri – grumpy
riri – angry
tāroaroa – tall
tawhito – old
tere – fast
wera – hot
whakatā – relaxed

There is one final word to add to this lesson: hoki. It has several meanings, but when added to the end of a sentence, means “also”. (Note this this isn’t pronounced like “hokey”, as in hokey-pokey, but like “hor-kee” – rhymes with “floor-key”.)

Kei te nui a Hōni, ā, kei te nui a Mere hoki.
Hōni is big, and Mere is also big.

I māuiui a Rangi, engari, i harikoa ia hoki.
Rangi was sick, but he was also happy.

Kei te hiakai koe, ā, kei te hiainu koe hoki.
You are hungry, and you are also thirsty.

Kei te pōuri koe, nō reira, kei te pōuri ahau hoki.
You are sad, therefore, I am also sad.