Māori Grammar

In english, the definite article is "the" and the indefinite article is "a". "The" is used when we want to refer to a particular person or thing ("the boy is talking") and "a" is used when we are referring more generally to a person or thing, without being very specific ("a boy is talking").

In te reo Māori, the singular definite article is te and the plural is ngā:

Te kurī.
The dog.

Ngā kurī.
The dogs.

The indefinite article is he and can be either singular or plural, so can be translated as either "a" or "some", depending on the context:

He kurī.
A dog.

He kurī.
Some dogs.

Unlike, in English, most nouns in Māori do not change in the plural. In English we say "song" and "songs" - add "s" is added to make the word plural. This does not generally happen in te reo. Waiata can either mean "song" or "songs" depenind on we use te or ngā in front of it.

There are a handful of exceptions where a word changes depending on whether is it singular or plural. The most significant one is tamariki, which is only ever plural ("children"), while tama is the singular form ("child"):

Te tama.
The child.

Ngā tamariki.
The children.

A number of other words, all relating to people, have a slight change in the plural, usually the lengthening of a vowel:

Te wahine.
The woman.

Ngā wāhine.
The women.

Te tane.
The man.

Ngā tāne.
The men.

Te tangata.
The person.

Ngā tāngata.
The people.

While te usually refers to a particular person or thing, it can also be used to refer to a class of things. For example, we could say:

E umere ana te tama.
The child is shouting.

E umere ana ngā tamariki.
The children are shouting.

But we could also say "children shout" (that's what children do):

E umere ana te tamariki.
Children shout.

The te refers to a class or category known as "children".

In English, we might say: “The horse was domesticated 6000 years ago”. Clearly we are not talking about a particular 6000 year old horse, but horses as a species. We can do the same in Māori, and can use te to refer to a class of things, just as we use it in English when we talk about “the potato” or “the cat” as a class of things:

He pukapuka mā te tamariki.
A book for children.

He hua whenua te kūmara.
The kūmera is a root vegetable. 

Tino turituri te wakarererangi.
Aeroplanes are noisy.