Te Aka Māori Dictionary

Te Murumāra Foundation

About this app

Te Aka is a Māori language dictionary that is easy to use by searching for Māori or English words. It includes the ability to filter search results, and to save definitions to a Favourites list. There are currently over 24,000 Māori headword entries in the database, which is being added to over time. An offline dictionary has also been included when internet connectivity is not available.

As well as English meanings, it has example sentences with translations for many entries. It even has photographs and audio clips for Aotearoa/New Zealand native fauna and photographs of flora, important people and other items where a photograph will aid understanding.

In addition to the words one would expect in a traditional dictionary, it also has encyclopaedic entries designed to provide key information about plants, animals, stars, planets, heavenly bodies, important Māori people, key ancestors of traditional narratives, tribal groups, ancestral canoes, song types, musical instruments, Māori names for institutions, country names, place names and other proper names. There are also detailed explanations of key concepts central to Māori culture. Comprehensive explanations for grammatical items are included, with examples of usage, as are idioms and colloquialisms with their meanings and examples.

The Te Aka Maori app is the companion to the popular www.maoridictionary.co.nz website and forms part of the Te Whanake Māori Language learning series.

Ratings and reviews

It's quite expensive for having no dark mode, which due to my photophobia (i.e. an actual condition where bright light causes pain) means using the app is a physically painful experience, all to get a similar experience to the free website where you can at least use a browser extension to make it dark and less painful. I hope that for this cost they add a dark mode so the user experience doesn't consist of getting stabbed in the eyes :(

Great to have an app version of te aka! Largely good, but I have noticed that if offline some words will not be available. I got frustrated when reading a novel and thinking that the author used several words that don't exist, but later (with wifi) they had definitions. If this is to make offline searches faster, please include the option to have the ENTIRE database offline, not a subset of it. I'd rate it 5 stars if that issue is resolved.

This is my fav App for the te reo language, helps many a tauira in te reo korero , via using or learning new kupu , without this app id be asking rangatira for kupu so thanks , Ki te ako te reo māori tātou, Ka ora te reo ake ake.

What’s new

Android 15 support