dave77

Hi,

We are on our way out to the South Island of 2 weeks next month and one thing that concerns me is pronounciation!

I heard that places beginning with 'Wh' is actually pronounced 'F' - how true is this?! I don't want to look like a tit asking for a place that no one has heard of, or worse still don't want to offend any Maoris!

Cheers!

kazmac72

Not sure if its the same with every "wh", but I have heard that Whangarei is pronounced Fungaray.... I checked to hear several people saying it on youtube too lol!! So it would fit in with what you are saying.

Trenchfoot

You are bang on. Maori place names or words with a 'wh' combination are pronounced as an 'eff' sound. So as dave says Whangarei sounds like fongaray when spoken. Then you've got the whole 'ng' thing to contend with, where the 'g' is sort of silent, like in the word singer. Makes place names like Whitianga a right sod!

But I wouldn't worry about that too much. No Maori's we've met have been offended by our dreadful pronounciation (and I've just finished my first term of Maori at night school) and the Kiwi mates you make are going see you as great value for a bit of gentle piss-taking as you mangle your way through place names.

I bet that every one of us that have made the jump have made tits of ourselves once or twice, so come and join the club.

Good luck with the move

nelsonpom

You won't offend anyone, people just won't understand a word your saying

Ash1

Hi,

Yes correct. It makes saying the place names Whakatane and Whakapapa sound a little different !!!!!!!
Ash

dave77

Thanks guys! Whakapapa?!! ... I won't even attempt that one!!

Jay-Producer

If you can learn the verbs you will be fine. The grammar is similar to German with learning the main letters (not the whole language). So learning the letter A is pronounced similar to German but different to English.

http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/ind...&search=search

Wiz'n'Ton

haha! That is real funny as it's just bought me back to the first time I watched the weather. The chap says 'Rain in Whakatane' which comes out as '*word that rhymes with puck*-uh-tahn-ay' and I'm like 'Bloody hell - they swear on telly!!!'

Took me a while to get over I can tell you. My parents cracked up when they first heard it, it's just so alien to hear when you are fresh off the plane.

Now it's a given.

Haha - I'm still giggling about that - cheers for the memory

kiwinow

Yes, in most areas the wh is pronounced "f", but don't worry too much. Oddly enough in Wanganui they are fighting to get the "h" put back in Whanganui, but in that area the local iwi don't pronounce the h, so regardless of the h it is pronounced Wanganui (Wong-ah-noo-ee)

People will laugh and correct you. Americans are often the funniest because they just don't get that Maori's pronounce each syllable and they try to run it all together. So Whakatane is not Wakatain, it's Faka-ta-nay. Actually, that last letter is more of a short e but I don't know how to put that on here. Kauwhatawhata is Cow-fotta-fotta. You get the picture.

Bo-Jangles

You can learn or at least listen to pronounciation here:

http://www.korero.maori.nz/forlearners/

MrCFD

MrCFD

Also Wai is pronounced seperately from anything coming after it. Ie. Waitomo isn't pronounced "Wait a mo", it's pronounced "why toe moe".

God knows how we are meant to pronounce 'Auckland', 'Nelson', 'Wellington', 'Hamilton', 'Christchurch', Blenheim and 'Dunedin'.

Bo-Jangles

Aye, you are right, the same for any syllables, they always end with a vowel. Once you figure that out, it helps to read words aloud like that, to establish where the natural breaks are. Mairangi = My-rangi, Paeroa - Pie-roe-a. Pakeha = Par-key-har


People shouldn't worry about mispronouncing places as rarely do you hear two Kiwis say the same. Old school, stuck-in-the mud Pakeha, refuse to say the WH (F) and will say it as an English W as in Wongaray, Even newsreaders, broadcasters, radio, weathermen etc struggle, they could all do with some lessons and some of their attempts are pretty scrappy and lazy.

Am Loolah

It seems as well that the pronunciation tends to be on the first syllable.

englishheaven

Its just PC BS! Pronounce it how you want. They make no effort to pronounce English words correctly.