Taumata whakatangi hangakoauau o tamatea turi pukakapiki maunga horo nuku pokai whenua kitanatahu.
This is the longest place name in the world, and it’s Maori. Despite its many letters it’s a little town in the Hawkes Bay of the North Island.
Our resident Whitireia voice, local boy, Clooney clone, is Dominic Godfrey. Or Dom to his peers. I’m not sure if Dom is part Maori or Polynesian. Perhaps he’s Lebanese. Maybe there’s Italian or Arabic blood in his veins. It’s hard to tell. Whatever his roots, he looks fantastic and sounds brilliant. I have it on good authority he smells like a meadow too.
Dom shows us how to say the town name in the video below and his delivery is perfect. He works in radio so his pronunciation must be correct. The rigorous efforts of the NZ media to correctly pronounce Maori is another feather in Aotearoa’s cap, hopefully it spurs on the rest of us to be proud of accurate Maori diction. Tau-ranga not Tower-wronga.
Check out 12 more crazy long words, pseudopseudohuporarthyroisim?
Te Reo me this... 
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