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Learning Some Very Helpful Tahiti Phrases

Tahiti is a popular vacation choice for everyone; tourists all over the world visit it and are charmed with the islands and the hypnotizing atmosphere. If you want to spend a few days in a wonderful Tahiti resort, you should check with your travel agent for some incredible offers. If you get there, you will probably want to spend all your holidays in Tahiti form then on.

If you've already decided to take a trip to that magical place, after setting things with the travel agency and packing all your things for an unforgettable experience, you should also consider remembering some very easy Tahiti phrases, which might help you during your vacation.

The official languages of French Polynesia are French and Tahitian. Since French Polynesia is made up of smaller groups of islands, each of these islands have their own language: Marquesas speak Marquesan, Tuamotus speak Tuamotan, Tahitians speak Tahitian and so on. Everyone there also knows French, so you could practice some of your French there.

All Polynesian languages are related, and they didn't exist in written form until the discovery of the islands and the arrival of the European missionaries, during the 1700's. These missionaries tried to match Tahiti phrases with those of the alphabet we know and use. Tahitians only use a total of 16 letters: the consonants B, F, G, H, K, M, N, P, R, T, and V, eleven out of the twenty one used in English, and the vowels A, E, I, O, and U.

One of the predominant characteristics of the Tahitian language is that their words never have silent letters; there is always a vowel between two consonants within the word. . It is very common to find groups of two or three vowels pressed together in one word, and that's why each vowel is treated as a different syllable and should be pronounced as such.

The "hard point" of Tahiti phrases comes in the form of the glottal catch. For example, if you take the word Faa'a, representing the name of a town, you will notice that an apostrophe separates 2 vowels from the one vowel and it is difficult to pronounce.

The "break" with such words is that they have entirely different meanings if they are not properly pronounced. For example, the word Ho'e, means one in Tahitian. Hoe, without the apostrophe, means row or paddle.

Some of the basic Tahiti phrases you could use are:

Ia Orana (yo-rah-nah) - Hello.

ana (nah-nah) - Bye bye.

Maita'i oe? (my-tie oh-ay) - How are you?

Maita'i yau (my-tie yah-oo) - I am fine.

Mauruuru (mah-roo-roo) - Thank you.

Ua ite oe i te parau Marite? (oo-ah ee-tay oh-ay ee tay pah-rah-oo mah-ree-tay) - Do you speak English?

Tapiti (tah-pee-tee) - Repeat plase.

Aita i papu ia'u (eye-tah ee pah-poo ee-ah-oo) - I don't understand