Tari means: Office.
For the noun ‘tari’ Te Aka gives the example sentence:
- Kei te Tari Māori tana tari. (Her office is at the Māori Department.)
I’m using this as a prompt to revise a few different ways you can speak about the location or someone or something:
You can use the preposition ‘kei’ introduce a phrase stating where the subject is located:
- Kei Pōneke te Whare Pāremata (Parliament is in Wellington)
- Kei konei ia tae nao atu ki te Mane (She’s here until Monday)
This same structure is used to describe temporary physical possession (but not ownership) which was mentioned in an earlier post about who has the kaputī:
- Kei a Josh te kaputī (Josh has the cup of tea)
Kei is used for the present tense. For past/future the locative prepositions are ‘i’ and ‘hei’:
- I a Josh te kaputī inanahi (Josh had the cup of tea yesterday)
- Hei a Josh te kaputī āpōpō (Josh will have the cup of tea tomorrow)
You can alternatively use ‘i’ to introduce a comment about location to another phrase:
- E mahi ana au i te tari (I am working in the office)
When describing a location, you can use locative nouns such as the following (basic form described only, each has more complex uses as well):
- mua (in front) - Kei mua rātou i te whare e tū ana (They are standing in front of the house)
- muri (behind) - Kei muri rātou i te whare e tū ana (They are standing behind the house)
- raro (under) - Kei hea te ngeru? Kei raro i te whare. (Where is the cat? Under the house.)
- runga (on/above) - I runga i te tēpu (On the table)
- roto (in/inside) - Kei roto te ngeru i te whare (the cat is inside the house)
- waho (outside) - Kei waho te ngeru (the cat is outside).