daily-reo

Hoko means: To buy, shop, purchase, trade.

An interesting thing about ‘hoko’ is that it means to both buy and sell, so the meaning often has to be inferred from context.

For today’s revision I’m going to cover some hokonga (trade) related rerenga as a way of talking about the question word ‘hia’ (how many?). This is the question word used when the expected answer is a number.

If you’re out shopping for kākahu (clothes), the kaihoko (shopkeeper) might ask you:

• Kia hia ngā pōtae māu? (How many hats do you want? [Literally: you want that there should be how many hats for you?)
• Kia kotahi te pōtae māku. (One hat for me.)
• Aē, kotahi te pōtae māu. (Yes, one hat for you.)
• E hia te utu mō te pōtae? (How much is the hat? [What amount is the price for the hat?])
• E rua tekau tāra, e rima tekau hēneti te utu mō te pōtae ($20.50 is the price for the hat)

An earlier post detailed the use of māu and māku similarly to this.