Maori Language Week: 14-20 September 2020
Every year Te Wiki o te Reo Māori or Māori Language Week provides a great chance for New Zealanders to expand their knowledge and use of Te Reo in everyday life.
A key element of Te Reo in written form is macaron use. Macrons, the horizontal lines above certain vowels to indicate emphasis, can completely change the meaning of a word or sentence.
Luckily it turns out there is an easy way to install the Māori dictionary on your computer and then with a couple of quick keyboard shortcuts, macron use is a breeze.
Just use the following easy steps outlined below:
Māori keyboard and language for Windows
• In Windows 7, 8 and 10, most computers should include the Māori language update. In order to use Māori macrons in Windows, do the following:
• Click the Language Bar in the bottom right of the screen near the clock, then choose 'Language Preferences'
• Click 'Add a language' under the heading 'Preferred Languages'
• Choose 'Te Reo Māori' from the list, and click 'install
• The language for your keyboard will now be set to the New Zealand English and Māori dictionary - just make sure it now says 'MRI' next to the clock
• To create macrons easily, you can hold the ` key (normally the one left of the 1 key) and press the appropriate letter to place the macron (ie: ` and a will give you ā)
• Use the Shift key in the middle of the sequence to make the letter a capital
Māori language and keyboard for Mac
• Click on the Apple logo in the top left and choose 'System Preferences'
• Click 'Language & Region', then choose 'Keyboard Preferences'
• Click the + icon and find Māori in the list
• Optionally, tick Show input menu in menu bar
• To type a macronised vowel on a Mac, you simply hold down Alt / Option and then the vowel. You can also do this in conjunction with the Shift key to type an uppercase vowel.
What's the best way to keep grocery shopping bills down?
We are still feeling the pinch and the weekly shop is no different. So we are after your cost-saving tips please, neighbours!
What’s the best way you've found to cut down on your grocery bill? Share below (and hear tips from others!)
Remembering Martin Phillipps on East FM, Saturday from midday
As a Gen Xer and NZ music enthusiast, it’s taken these days to comprehend the loss of Martin Phillipps, who died last Sunday aged 61. That’s too young, but what an extraordinarily full life, with a significant chunk of it on the road playing his music of The Chills to audiences in this country and across the planet.
As an indie-rock band out of Dunedin, and for its Kiwi fans (us Gen Zers), it has always been a great source of pride that one of ours generated attention abroad.
They attracted fans everywhere, and the only time I met him was on foreign soil at a venue, The Orange, at Islington, in London, around 1996. Our band had a gig upstairs in the acoustic room, while The Chills were headlining in the main room below. Sound check times overlapped and we talked while waiting around. They were road warriors, on one of their many UK and European tours.
I remember seeing them at the late-great Gluepot here in the late 1980s, too, the last NZ gig before heading overseas for the first time to fly the flag for the Dunedin Sound.
Martin Phillipps will be missed. A great New Zealander who accentuated our national character in all his eccentricities. The legacy he leaves with us is priceless, music so vast in quantity and lush in quality, and those who were fortunate enough to acquire a taonga from recent online sales of his legendary pop-culture collection know they now possess a wonderful connection to a man that showed the world what Kiwis can do. And acquire.
There are many of Phillipps’ and The Chills songs that are part of our national cultural DNA, the soundtrack to the Gen Xer life – I Love My Leather Jacket, Heavenly Pop Hit, Pink Frost, Kaleidoscope World, Doldrums, Rolling Moon – and recent albums, Snow Bound (2018) and Scatterbrain (2021), are regular favourites, especially the driving song Complex:
I’m not the man you think I am
I’m a complex piece of the plan…
Essential viewing: One of the best music documentaries is The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps, made in recent years and telling the story of a determined Kiwi bloke driven to take his music to the world, and of a band that must have the record for most members over four decades. And at the end, he and they were at their most settled and enjoying the most original of NZ indie rock n’ roll. – PJ
I’ll be playing music by The Chills on tomorrow’s She’ll Be Right on Saturdays Show with PJ Taylor, midday to 4pm on East FM, East Auckland’s fair-dinkum community-powered public service radio station, on 88.1FM and 107.1FM on local frequencies, nationally and globally at www.eastfm.nz... and on app iHeart Radio.
Photo: Martin Phillipps in the 1980s. Page 293 in John Dix's book Stranded in Paradise, the History of NZ Rock n' Roll 1955-1988.
Poll: Should you ask before planting tall shrubs/trees near your property line?
It may be fine now but in a few years trees can block out light or views for neighbours.
Do you think neighbours should ask before they go ahead and plant these?
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69% Yes, always ask
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29.8% No
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1.1% Other - I'll share below!
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