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EnglishHow Is Tōku Reo Connected to the Te Whanake Māori Language Course?
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Tōku Reo is a television and web series built directly on Te Whanake, the comprehensive Te Reo Māori course created by Professor John Moorfield. The show's vocabulary and sentence structures follow the Te Whanake curriculum, and the Tōku Reo website links out to Te Whanake textbooks, study guides, audio CDs, animations, and the Māori Dictionary that support the same course. If you are working through Te Whanake, Tōku Reo is designed as a companion to it rather than a separate programme.
The relationship in one line
Tōku Reo is the broadcast and online face of Te Whanake. The course provides the teaching framework; the show delivers it as a half-hour, five-days-a-week programme with role-plays, interactive exercises, podcasts, and a forum.
How the course shapes the show
According to the Tōku Reo website, the series is "based on the comprehensive Te Whanake language course created by Professor John Moorfield." That connection shows up in the show's structure:
- Vocabulary and sentence structures — In every block of five episodes, learners pick up vocabulary built around a role-play plus a small number of sentence structures. This mirrors the staged progression of the Te Whanake course.
- Homework from the course author — Each episode bundle includes homework set by Professor John Moorfield himself.
- Supporting segments — Newly coined words from the Māori Language Commission and different tribal dialects round out each block, alongside the core Te Whanake material.
The result is a beginners' programme that combines kaumātua, rangatahi, learners, and native speakers within a single structured course.
The resources that connect the two
The Tōku Reo site lists a set of resources organised by Māori language ability, and these are the same materials that make up the Te Whanake course:
| Resource type | Titles listed |
|---|---|
| Textbooks | Te Kākano, Te Pihinga, Te Māhuri, Te Kōhure |
| Study guides | Te Kākano, Te Pihinga, Te Māhuri |
| Audio CDs | Te Kākano, Te Pihinga, Te Māhuri |
| Teachers' manuals | Te Kākano, Te Pihinga, Te Māhuri |
The site also links directly to Te Whanake Home, Te Whanake Resources, Te Whanake Animations, Te Whanake TV, and the Māori Dictionary — so a learner can move between the show and the course materials without leaving the ecosystem.
What this means if you want to learn
If your goal is to follow Te Whanake, Tōku Reo gives you a free-to-access broadcast and web layer on top of it: episodes, interactive exercises, podcasts, and a forum to reinforce what you are learning. The show's own framing is that it is "a new, vibrant, and fun way of learning Te Reo Māori in the comfort of your own home."
A practical sequence, based on what the site describes:
- Watch the current block of five episodes to get the role-play vocabulary and sentence structures.
- Use the interactive exercises and podcasts on the Tōku Reo site to reinforce them.
- Cross-check words in the linked Māori Dictionary.
- Work through the matching Te Whanake textbook, study guide, or audio CD for your level.
Where to start
The Tōku Reo site organises its series into Series 1 through Series 5, with a featured Episode One that covers greetings for one, two, or three-or-more people and introduces the top 10 words of the day, including toku and reo. The Te Whanake resources are grouped by language ability, so beginners would begin with Te Kākano materials and the corresponding early episodes.