Māori word games for learning te reo

Each game below links to the game itself. Game screens show instructions in te reo Māori first, with English alongside.

There is one hidden kupu each day. Type a guess and every letter is marked Tika (right letter, right spot), Tata (in the word, wrong spot) or Kāo (not in the word). A length hint also tells you whether your guess is too short, too long or the right length. You have a limited number of guesses, counted down on screen, and when the round ends you see the word with its English meaning.

The letters follow the Māori alphabet: ng and wh each count as one letter and have their own keys, and a macron vowel such as ā is a different letter from a. On a computer keyboard, Shift plus a vowel types the macron.

The board is a grid of kupu that belong in four hidden groups. Select the words you think share a connection and submit them. A correct group is revealed with its name in te reo Māori and English; a wrong one costs a mistake, and the number you can make is limited. You can shuffle the board or clear your selection at any time. Any groups you missed are shown when the puzzle ends, and a new puzzle comes the next day.

The chain starts from a given word. Each kupu you add must begin with the last letter of the one before it, where ng and wh again count as single letters. At the join a macron may differ, so a word ending in ē can be followed by one starting with e. Words must be in the game’s word list and cannot be repeated. Build the longest chain you can before the countdown ends, or stop early and bank what you have.

A month’s words of the day become a multiple-choice quiz. For every kupu, choose its meaning from the options. To prepare, read Ngā Kupu o te Marama, which lists each day’s word and meaning under the month’s theme and lets you look back at earlier months.

If te reo Māori is new to you, start by reading the word of the day on the home page and this month’s words, then try Kupu Huna: its colour hints work even when you do not know the word yet. Ngā Tūhono and Mekameka Kupu ask you to recall more words from memory, so they suit you once some vocabulary is familiar.