I read recently that there’s been an increase in the number of people wanting to learn both te reo Māori and Pasifika languages. These languages were described as “having utility”, so the desire to learn them is laudable. However, New Zealand’s main trading partners are either in Europe or Asia, where the South Pacific languages have no utility at all.
Would it not therefore be beneficial to encourage people to also study either a European language or
Mandarin Chinese?
S. Corbet, Whakamarama.