My grandad told me not to learn te reo Māori – and who could blame him?

When Dan Keenan grew up, speaking te reo invited insults, shaming and the odd "educational" whack. Eager to prove himself in a Pākehā world, he warned his granddaughter not to learn his native language. But after wrestling with "all the wrong languages" Lauren Keenan is finally embracing her grandad's buried treasure, te reo Māori.

Just last week, the Stop-Go sign at the end of my street read "haere". That felt great, and not only because of the mana wave the worker had thrown in my direction – it was also a reminder of how far things have come. But with the growing number of people who kōrero te reo Māori, I'm reminded of what I am: a Māori who, until very recently, knew only the functional basics of te reo. And not understanding the language of my tūpuna triggers some complicated emotions. No least, shame.

But learning languages is difficult as an adult. Let’s admit: sometimes, even the very act of adulting is hard. It’s tricky enough to remember to pick up the milk on the way home, or book the warrant, or remember the name of that lady who might be Rachel or might be Rebecca – you know the one, you see her all the time, and now it’s getting awkward. And if those details won’t barnacle to your brain, how can you expect to learn all these new words and sentence structures? It can all feel much to hard.

My grandad spoke te reo – he was a native speaker, as were his parents. But Grandad didn’t want me to learn. "It’s a waste of time," he said. "Learn something useful instead." This disdain didn’t extend to other things in te ao Māori: he still sat on the paepae of marae, and the value of manaakitanga was a key feature of who he was. He also used te reo himself – words woven into his kōrero, but never enough to carry the whole conversation.

Born in 1920, my grandad was a man from a different time. His grandmother was at Parihaka with Te Whiti o Rongomai when the Armed Constabulary invaded in 1881: Grandad is the bridge that links my children to her. While at university, I interviewed him for some of my history projects.

"I want to interview you about gender, race, and class."

Grandad stared at me. "Eh?"

"Uh …." The intersection of gender, race and class had made perfect sense in my lectures. Now it felt like the nerd's equivalent of a self-licking ice-cream. I quickly pivoted, asking what I was most interested to know. "Were people racist when you were a kid?"

Grandad didn’t reply at first. "They told me to go and eat fish heads," he said eventually. "They said that was all Māori ate."

He then told me other stories that I captured in my messy scrawl. He and his siblings were called "dirty Māoris". At school, the Pākehā children were given toothbrushes, but the Māori children were not.

"Why not?" I asked.

Grandad shrugged. "Maybe they thought our teeth were dirtier."

And, while at school, he was hit for speaking te reo. So he didn’t. He wanted to show the Pākehā: he was of value, too. And he would prove it, by succeeding in their world.

"Why didn’t you join the Māori Battalion?" I asked in another interview. Grandad was 18 when World War II began; he would later enlist in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and fight at Guadalcanal.

Grandad looked cross. He was clever enough for the Air Force, he told me, just as clever as any of those Pākehā – they had passed the same tests to qualify, after all. "We had our own homes, worked during the week, and mowed the bloody lawns in the weekends like the Pākehā."

"But why choose the Air Force at all?"

"Those boys in the Māori battalion all spoke Māori," Grandad replied. "In the Air Force, they spoke English." He never would have gotten into the Air Force if he had spoken only Māori, Grandad continued. Which only further confirmed his view that knowing Māori held you back. Grandad didn’t understand why some of his own children gravitated toward working in te ao Māori as adults. To him, being Māori meant not getting a toothbrush when everyone else did, and speaking te reo meant not being good enough to fly planes. You shouldn’t learn te reo, he told me. So, apart from the odd course here and there, I didn’t.

I studied Spanish for a year – enough to say "you’re not in Guatemala now, Dr Ropata" while in Guatemala, although, in retrospect, the only person I was impressing was myself. I did a night course in Arabic, struggling to read from right to left, eventually giving up. There are only three words I still remember: "Egypt", "water", and "house". I used all three while travelling in the Middle East. Without exception, whoever I was talking to would blink, then revert to English. I did learn Italian, after living in a small Italian town with people who didn’t speak English. By the time I left, Italian permeated my dreams. Even now, there are times I reach for a word, and find an Italian one in its place. But the language is almost gone for me now; the only time I consider using it is when ordering at the Italian place in town. Which I don’t, for fear of looking like a knobber.

For many years, Grandad’s advice about te reo was convenient for me: languages are hard to learn as an adult, after all. Especially a language you care about deeply. Using a language as a visitor to another country is very different to committing yourself to a life-long journey on your own tūrangawaewae. And the more I learned words in other languages, the more I understood the vast chasm between basic proficiency and fluency. Moving from one to the other would take real effort, making the idea of learning Te Reo even more intimidating.

Grandad died aged 85 in 2006. He marched every ANZAC Day with the other veterans, and, when he passed, the New Zealand flag was draped over his coffin in honour of his service in Air Force. His death was a great loss for our whānau. At the time, I had a phone that sent only texts, and a film camera. This reminds me that while Grandad grew up in a different time to me, he also died in a world completely foreign to my children. Just as he was a bridge between me and my tupuna at Parihaka, I am the bridge between my children and him. Grandad had good intentions – he wanted what was best for his children and grandchildren, so gave advice based on his own experiences. If he were still alive today to see how much te reo has been revived – that even "go" signs say "haere" – he might have felt differently.

I am now in my second year of studying toward a three-year diploma in te reo Māori, part time.

It is the hardest language I have ever learned. This isn’t because of the kīwaha that confuse me and the passive verb endings that make my head ache. It is because I have had to deal with my own complicated feelings, including while learning that some of the words my grandad used – such as motokā – are no longer in general use. That, as well as juggling all of that other stuff that makes adulting hard: getting the milk from the dairy, booking in the warrant, remembering the name of that woman, who, now I think about it, may actually be called Raewyn.

It is the best language I have ever learned. Because I am a bridge that doesn’t just link my children with a time before internet-capable phones and digital cameras – it also connects them to those who spoke te reo fluently. And, in doing so, I hope that – in time – I will be nothing more than one weak link in what will eventually become a strong chain.