NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Kahu

Google fails to deliver campaign promise to fix Māori pronunciation on Google Maps

By Ximena Smith
Māori Television·
16 May, 2022 08:46 AM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Google doesn't have the right technology to fulfil promises made in 2017 to improve Māori pronunciation in Google Maps. Video / Te Ao Māori News

Originally published by Māori Television

Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (the Māori Language Commission) told Te Ao with Moana this week that Google didn't have the right technology to fulfil promises made in a 2017 campaign to improve Māori pronunciation in the Google Maps app.

As part of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week) that year, Te Taura Whiri, Vodafone and Google launched the campaign "Say It Tika", which called on New Zealanders to pin incorrectly pronounced Māori place names on an online map.

More than 67,000 corrections were submitted to the website in the space of two weeks, and later that year, Vodafone and Google received special recognition at the 14th Māori Language Awards for the campaign.

But according to Te Taura Whiri chief executive Ngahiwi Apanui, Google was not able to complete its part of the project.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Te reo Māori technology missing

Apanui said that some time after the campaign had finished, he got a message from Vodafone saying Google hadn't honoured its part of the bargain because it didn't have the correct technology to fix the problem.

"They were trying to use an English voice platform to replicate sounds in te reo Māori, and it couldn't work," Apanui said.

Voice platforms are a critical component of artificial intelligence products, such as Google Maps and Siri. They can do tasks like recognise the words someone is saying and transcribe it to text, or vice versa.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Apanui said the voice platform that was missing in the Say It Tika project was one that recognised te reo Māori.

"Our assumption had been that they [Google] were going to work to develop a Māori language platform or a platform that would work for Polynesian languages," he said.

"But without that kind of technology, it was never really going to work."

Te Taura Whiri chief executive Ngahiwi Apanui. Photo / Marty Melville
Te Taura Whiri chief executive Ngahiwi Apanui. Photo / Marty Melville

Teaching computers to speak Māori

While a te reo Māori voice platform didn't exist in 2017, since then, an organisation called Te Hiku Media has been hard at work developing a suite of Māori language voice recognition tools.

Discover more

Business

From Aspiration to Zoom: The 2022 Budget alphabet

16 May 12:00 AM
Education

'Commonsense has prevailed': Govt drops international primary students ban

15 May 08:00 PM

Using data pulled from iwi radio archives, Te Hiku Media has been able to successfully build different types of voice platform software - for example, its Māori voice recognition speech to text software works at an 86 per cent success rate.

Te Hiku Media chief executive Peter-Lucas Jones said that while the intentions of the Say It Tika campaign were admirable, the technical side of the project should have involved Māori with the right expertise.

"You can't just say it tika … you've got to do it tika too, and doing it tika means working with those Māori people that are working in that space," he said.

Jones said he hadn't yet been asked by Google to help finish the Say It Tika project but he's definitely open to working with the organisation.

"If they were to approach us, absolutely we'd be keen to work with them," he said.

"But we also have Māori principles and Māori values that we engage with organisations … so if we were to work with global corporates, or anyone for that matter, we need to work on our terms."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Improvements made but still work to do

Google said improvements have been made to Māori place name pronunciation on Google Maps since the Say It Tika campaign took place.

However, the organisation recognised there was still work to do, and it apologised for this.

Google did not respond to a question about whether it would work with Te Hiku Media to finish the Say It Tika project, but it did point to other work done to support the Māori language, such as launching Google Search in te reo and ensuring Māori place names were spelt correctly on Google Maps with macrons.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Kahu

New Zealand

'Long-term strategy': How iwi are outpacing major NZ companies

07 Jul 05:00 PM
Property

Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei wins Environment Court appeal for recognition

07 Jul 05:00 AM
Kahu

'Real and unequal': MP's death highlights kidney disease crisis among Māori

04 Jul 05:00 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Kahu

'Long-term strategy': How iwi are outpacing major NZ companies

'Long-term strategy': How iwi are outpacing major NZ companies

07 Jul 05:00 PM

Tainui's assets grew to $1.9m, enabling $56m distribution to marae.

Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei wins Environment Court appeal for recognition

Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei wins Environment Court appeal for recognition

07 Jul 05:00 AM
'Real and unequal': MP's death highlights kidney disease crisis among Māori

'Real and unequal': MP's death highlights kidney disease crisis among Māori

04 Jul 05:00 PM
'Special ceiling': sun and moon art adorn new Auckland train station

'Special ceiling': sun and moon art adorn new Auckland train station

03 Jul 03:00 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP