Excursions in Google Translated Maori: Hukarere = To Snow

TIL, from a typo'd search for what I presume was a Japanese term written out in English letters, that "hukarere" means "to snow" in Maori

https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=hukarere

Fascinating... according to Google translate, if I change from saying "I wish it would snow" to "I wish it would snow *again*", one of the extra words ("ano") looks awfully like something you'd hear in Japanese

(For context, I don't really know/understand Japanese, but from time to time, I have heard enough in sequence to get a feel for the patterns these days)

1) "I wish it would snow in Ōtautahi"
== "Ko taku hiahia kia hukarere i Ōtautahi"

2) "I wish it would snow again in Ōtautahi"
== "Ko taku hiahia ka heke ano i Ōtautahi"

🤓

Disclaimer: I don't know Te Reo either, so Google may have totally butchered that badly and done the equivalent of "Catmeat I eat love" here, when I meant "I like cats"

Additional Can of Worms: 

* "rere" means "to run" /  "to flow"

* "wairere" means "waterfall"

* BUT "rain" is "ua"?!  🤯

   (the pronunciation examples for that and the related terms though are pretty impossible to catch!)

Late Night Birding Rabbit-Hole - Alternate Maori Names for Silvereyes

I was rearranging some files when I came across the pukupuku videos recently, and was reminded of the alternate Maori name for Silvereyes: "Pihipihi"

TBH, I've long disliked the standard one that textbooks often refer to (i.e. "Tauhou", as I've always found it hard to figure out the pronunciation of, and just didn't like the meaning either). Granted... tonight I have managed to narrow it down to sound like "Tau - Hor" (i.e. rhyming with, "Chow Hor" - i.e. fried thick rice noodles, such as "Beef Ho Fun" 😋)

But "Pihipihi" - well that I can certainly pronounce (and the name does have some links back to the sounds they sometimes make - e,g, when they hopping around the undergrowth, making contented vocalisations from all the feasting they're in the midst of... or maybe it's another way of expressing those rapid "fleeing triplet calls" - i.e. "cli cli cli" / "chie chie chie")

In addition, it turns out there are a bunch of *other* names too now that some tribes may have used. In particular, the ones that stood out to me are:
* 1) "Poporohe" - Yeah, that one sounds easy enough to remember + pronounce again
* 2) "Pikariahe" - Slightly less convenient, given the macron on the first i (which I won't be using)

* 3) "Whiorangi" - Given that I now have a code-documentation system named after the "Whio"   (blue-duck), calling them "blue-ducks of the sky" is a tempting idea!

I'll have to do some more research into all of these to double-check what's going on, but don't be surprised if I start adopting these names for various purposes going forwards  (e.g. for a photo editing + management tool being the most likely beneficiary!) 🤓