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 In the course of my work with languages, I came across Neri Rook, a Brazilian computer whiz. Using word frequency lists and banks of text, he has created an amazing resource for learning languages (over a dozen). 

He starts with the most common 200 words in a language. Then, does a computer analysis of a large corpus of written text in that language. An average frequency value is calculated for every sentence. Finally, a set of the easiest 10 sentences that include a common word is extracted and translated. In short, 2000 sentences for the 200 most common words.

The resource does not exist for Maori, so that gives me the opportunity to create one!

200

Two hundred days in the adventure continues!

On the 200^th day, I found myself sitting in a chair outside the principal’s office. I was a few minutes early to pick up Sachi, so I made myself comfortable and copied out Dr Suess’s Te Poti ro Potae (The Cat in the Hat).

It took quite a while since there are 40 pages of text. I was still at it after school as Sachi climbed the monkey bars. I chatted with J, a parent of Maori descent, who explained why he hadn’t completed his Maori language course.

“What you’re doing is cool!”