Best Apps to Learn Māori in 2026 (Free and Paid)

Te reo Māori is an official language of New Zealand, and the 2023 Census counted more than 200,000 people who can hold a conversation in it, about 4.3 percent of the country. Duolingo announced a Māori course in 2020 and paused it that year, and its App Store page does not list Māori among its courses. A few other apps do teach it. This page covers them, along with free courses and books from Aotearoa.

Custom Lessons Made for You

Bubblegum

For serious learners, Bubblegum is the best app to learn Māori. You learn from Māori you can mostly understand, which is called comprehensible input.

Your cousins in Rotorua speak a little te reo. Ask Poppy, your AI tutor, for a lesson on greeting them, with Kia ora (hello) and Kei te pēhea koe? (how are you?), and she writes it at your level, with audio. Ask her about any word or line while you read.

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Poppy writes each lesson around your level and the topics you choose.
Lessons play AI audio while you read.
Tap a word to see what it means, or ask Poppy to explain a whole line.
Grammar topics explain how Māori works, such as why a macron changes a word.
Regenerative Review™ brings saved words back in new lessons, and you can export them to Anki as flashcards.
Clear, expressive AI voices read every lesson aloud, with a different voice for each speaker.

Lessons use modern standard spelling, with macrons over the long vowels. Some iwi write long vowels as double letters, so a book from there can look different.
You can't turn your own Māori books into lessons. However, you can paste a page in the chat, and Poppy will explain it.
Custom lessons cost us money to make, so you need Bubblegum Pro for unlimited custom lessons. Lessons Poppy wrote for other learners are free for everyone to read.

Regenerative Review™

Mobile

Follow a Course

Ling

Ling is a course app. Its Māori lessons combine audio with game-based challenges, and you can use it on iOS and Android.

A course with four stages: basics, real content, conversation practice and advanced topics.
A dialog feature for practicing conversations, and flashcards for new words.

The first two beginner units are free. Ling Pro opens all the lessons.

Flashcards

MobileWeb

Learn Words and Phrases

Drops

Drops teaches Māori through short sessions that focus on words and phrases. It suits a learner who wants to fill spare minutes with new words.

Short sessions on words and phrases, so you can fit one into spare minutes.
Topics include the Māori alphabet, greetings and goodbyes.

Drops teaches vocabulary and pronunciation, and Consumer NZ found you need to learn grammar somewhere else.
The free version limits how long you can learn each day. Drops Premium removes the limit.

Mobile

uTalk

uTalk teaches Māori words and phrases for everyday situations, like greetings, family and food.

More than 2,500 words and phrases in over 60 categories.
You hear real Māori speakers, not computer voices, and you can record yourself and compare.

Every language has free starter words, and a subscription or a purchase opens the rest.

MobileWeb

Other Apps We Looked At (3)

KōreroreroA free app from AUT with eight lessons, each built around an everyday activity. It focuses on speaking, and the first lesson has words you can use right away.
Ako TahiA free iPhone app with more than 2,500 everyday phrases in themes such as food and sports. Each phrase has audio, and the phrases use the Ngāpuhi dialect from Northland.
Te Aka Māori DictionaryA Māori-English dictionary on the web and as an app for iPhone, iPad and Android. Consumer NZ calls it perhaps the most crucial resource for learners.

Practice With a Person

Other Apps We Looked At (3)

italkiOne-on-one video lessons. italki lists very few Māori tutors, so book early if you find a good fit.
PreplyPrivate online lessons. Preply lists only a few Māori tutors, and you can book a trial lesson to see whether one suits you.
HelloTalkA language exchange app with a page for Māori partners, voice rooms and learner posts.

Free Resources From Aotearoa

Much of the teaching from Aotearoa is free. Te Whanake has podcasts that give you the listening and speaking exercises for each chapter of its four textbooks, streamed videos such as the beginner series Tōku Reo, and animated modules. The first textbook, Te Kākano, is for beginners, and its chapters have dialogues, grammar explanations and pronunciation exercises. The books are sold in the Te Whanake Shop. The shop sometimes lists Te Kākano as out of stock, and Aotearoa Books sells it.

Toro Mai is a free online course from Massey University that takes about 10 hours. It covers meeting people, family, food, sport, home and work, and it has no assignments or exams. Check on the site whether enrolment is open.

Reo Māori is the site of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, the Māori Language Commission. It has a directory of places to learn, a tool for finding your level, and a list of learning communities.

Which Māori Apps Are Free?

App	Free?	What's Free
Bubblegum	Free version	Custom lessons cost us money to make, so you need Bubblegum Pro for unlimited custom lessons. Lessons Poppy wrote for other learners are free for everyone to read.
Ling	Some lessons free	The first two beginner units are free in every language. Ling Pro opens all the lessons, and the yearly plan starts with a 7-day free trial.
Drops	Free version	The free version lets you learn for five minutes every 10 hours. Drops Premium gives you unlimited time and all the content, and the yearly plan starts with a 7-day free trial.
uTalk	Some lessons free	Every language has free starter words, and getting full marks in the games opens one more topic for free. For the rest, you subscribe or buy a language or topic.
Kōrerorero	Free	Its App Store page says it is free with no ads or subscriptions.
Ako Tahi	Free	Its App Store page calls it a free app.
Te Aka Māori Dictionary	Not stated	The dictionary is on the web, and Consumer NZ says the standalone app has a one-off cost to download. The page does not say what is free.

Learn Māori in Your Language

Each number is how many languages you can use the app in, including script variants.

App	Languages You Can Use It In	Full List
Bubblegum	74	Full list Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bulgarian Burmese Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino (Tagalog) Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Italian Japanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer Korean Kyrgyz Lao Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Malayalam Marathi Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Romansh Russian Serbian (Cyrillic) Serbian (Latin) Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Zulu
Ling	68	Full list
Drops	16	Full list
uTalk	140+	Full list
Kōrerorero	1	Full list
Ako Tahi	1	Full list
italki	19	Full list
Preply	19	Full list
HelloTalk	16	Full list
Te Aka Māori Dictionary	—	—

Common Questions

Which Māori app should a beginner choose?

If you are serious about learning Māori, start with Bubblegum. Poppy, your AI tutor, writes lessons at your level about things you like. Or start with the free Kōrerorero app if you want to practice speaking, or with the Te Kākano textbook and its free Te Whanake podcasts if you want a full beginner course.

Does Duolingo teach Māori?

Not that we can find. Duolingo said in 2020 that it was building a beginner Māori course, and then paused the work. Its App Store page does not name Māori.

Do I need to use macrons?

Yes. A macron marks a long vowel, and it can change the word. keke is cake and kēkē is armpit. Te Taura Whiri advises macrons for all words, and some iwi write a long vowel as a double letter in their own names.

Is Bubblegum free?

Yes. Lessons Poppy wrote for other learners are free for everyone to read. Custom lessons cost us money to make, so you need Bubblegum Pro for unlimited custom lessons.