Why Reo Chat?

Use more of the reo you have

Reo Chat helps people at all levels of te reo Māori communicate with one another, while preserving each person's own words, own voice at the centre of the kōrero.

Learning te reo and having somewhere to use it are two different problems.

You might be learning Māori but find that most of your everyday communication still happens in English.

You might be fluent but regularly switch to English because the person you are messaging would not understand otherwise.

Or maybe you speak very little Māori yourself but you want to participate in conversations in Māori without being left out or left behind.

Reo Chat helps bridge those gaps.

Different levels of reo. One shared conversation

I speak little or no Māori

I can participate in a conversation where te reo Māori is being used.

Understand messages written in te reo Māori and respond in the language you can comfortably use, without requiring others to abandon their reo.

Reo Chat lets you take part without requiring Māori to disappear from the conversation. You can understand what is said and you can contribute using the language you are most comfortable with. Even if you do not speak te reo Māori, you can support revitalisation by making room for it in the conversation.

I am learning te reo Māori

I can practise what I am learning when communicating within my existing relationships.

Write as much as you can in Māori yourself. Reo Chat helps by making your message understandable to someone who doesn't understand as much as you, and helps you understand kōrero beyond your current level.

Taking what you've learned in the classroom and applying it in your everyday communication helps reinforce it. It turns te reo Māori from something you're learning into something you're living.

He matatau ahau ki te kōrero Māori

Ka taea e au te kōrero Māori ki ētahi atu tāngata i tōku ao.

Tuhia noa atu ō karere Māori ki a wai noa atu, ahakoa te taumata o tōna reo. Mā Reo Chat ia e āwhina kia mārama.

Kei a koe kē te reo. Mā Reo Chat koe e āwhina ki te whakamahi i tō reo i ngā horopaki maha ake, tae atu ki te kōrero ki te hunga kāore e mārama ki te kore he āwhina.

The story behind Reo Chat

I was learning te reo Māori and wanted to put what I was learning into practical use, but most of the people I knew didn't speak or understand Māori, especially those with whom I communicated most frequently.

I could practise in class and study, but when I picked up my phone to message the people already in my life, I had to go back to English.

I could have written every message in Māori and then translated it into English myself. But that would have made ordinary communication feel like another learning exercise.

I wanted to do the valuable part: think about what I wanted to say and try to express it in Māori. But I needed something to bridge the gap between me and the people with whom I was communicating.

Being a software engineer, I felt that technology could help with this and so I decided to build a tool to solve my problem.

That tool eventually became what is now Reo Chat.

An everyday place for te reo Māori

Messaging is a real domain of language use.

Whānau chats, messages between friends, workplace conversations and community groups are places where people maintain relationships every day.

Reo Chat supports revitalisation by helping facilitate another everyday domain in which te reo Māori can be used more often.

Messaging sits alongside speaking Māori together in person, learning with kaiako and participating in communities of speakers. Reo Chat focuses on one particular part of modern life: the conversations you have on your phone and computer.

Why everyday language use matters

Signs, greetings, names and ceremonial occasions all help make te reo Māori visible. They affirm its status as the indigenous language of Aotearoa, and help people become more familiar with it.

But visibility alone cannot sustain a living language. Genuine revitalisation ultimately has to reach into people communicating with one another in Māori: in homes, friendships, whānau, communities and ordinary daily life.

A language truly lives when people use it with one another as part of everyday life -- not just when they encounter it on special occasions.

How we build Read about our approach Voice, context, care and control The wider kaupapa Reo Chat and revitalisation How do we see our efforts fitting into the wider kaupapa

Make more room for te reo Māori in everyday communication.

Use what you have. Keep your own voice. Make Māori the reo through which you connect with more people in your life.

Create a bilingual message