-letter words in te reo
Most, but not all, of the single-letter words in te reo Māori are particles or structural words – and have grammatical functions specific to the construction of phrases in te reo, meaning that, quite often, they aren’t translatable into English words.
The focus this week is on words represented by a and ā.
As the “personal article”, the word a precedes personal names when they occur as the subject of a sentence: I haere / a Tamahae / ki te kura. (“Tamahae went to school. “).
It should be noted, though, that when it is wished to emphasise who is doing something the subject may be put before the verb and is then preceded by ko: Ko Tamahae / i haere / ki te kura. (“[It was] Tamahae [who] went to school.”)
This same word precedes both personal names and personal pronouns after any of the location prepositions kei, i, hei or ki: Hoatu / te rākau / ki a Mere. (“Give the stick to Mary.”); Hoatu / te rākau / ki a mātou. (“Give the stick to us.”)
Link to video and article: There's no shortcuts when adressing single-letter words in te reo | Stuff.co.nz
