Kaupapa
About Ara Reo
Ara Reo is a daily practice loop for te reo Māori. Open a card. Hear the kupu. Say it back. Track your reo over time, kupu by kupu.
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A practice loop, not a course.
Daily, low-stakes repetition. The bit you do after a course, alongside one, or instead.
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Real Aotearoa voices, not synthetic.
Pronunciation from Te Hiku Media's Papa Reo: speech models trained on real Māori voices.
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Quiet by design, not by accident.
No tracking, no ads, no streaks pressure. We log next to nothing and never your audio.
Ngā Whakaaro
Built for people, shaped by people.
We're trying to make a small but positive contribution to te reo in Aotearoa. The stories we hear from people using Ara Reo is what tells us we're on the right track. Keep them coming.
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"It's the perfect thing to come back to every day. A few minutes with a coffee and I'm set for the morning."
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"Beautiful to hear the reo represented properly. Most apps do it terribly through English-trained voices. This one doesn't."
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"It feels like it cares about the language, and helps me appreciate it more."
Early user feedback.
Got something to share? Drop us a line.
Why a practice loop, not a course
There are excellent courses for te reo Māori. Ara Reo is the bit you do after a course, or alongside it, or instead of one if you've come to learning later in life. It's the daily, low-stakes repetition that turns recognition into recall, and recall into speech.
Made with experts
The voices and pronunciation feedback come from Te Hiku Media's Papa Reo platform: speech recognition trained on real Māori voices, by Māori, for Māori. Using their API means the reo you hear is the reo of Aotearoa, not a synthetic accent trained on English vowels.
Built in the open
Ara Reo runs on a small environment built right here in Aotearoa, with expert cultural guidance along the way. No tracking, no ads, no need to worry about what happens to your data. We're up front about what we do, and how we do it.
Get involved
Spotted a kupu we've got wrong, or got a new one to add? Suggest a kupu and we will take a look. For anything bigger, drop us a line.