Olivia talks to Italian man who taught himself Tokelauan

Olivia Foa'i talks to Italian ‘language explorer’ Davide Carretta about how he taught himself Gagana Tokelau using Te Vaka songs and PDFs online.

Manuia te vaiaho o te Gagana Tokelau. Happy Tokelau language week. This week Aotearoa celebrates the beautiful language we've had the privilege of singing in for nearly 30 years.

Instagram @Te_Vaka
Twitter @Tevaka

[Leilani_]

This is so amazing and inspiring! I'm half Samoan & I'm attempting to teach myself Samoan. It's been rough and I gave up for a while. I even found myself thinking I was too removed from the culture to learn. It's inspiring to see that it is indeed possible.

[Teia]

That is so amazing. I don't even know our own language and he speaks it so fluently. 😮.

[SirenMystica]

This man is truly amazing. It is wonderful to see you all posting again ❤

[aaronvoltaire]

I love The Vaka, I am brazilian and my big dream is to go to NZ to watch a show...

[_KAVOROM_]

Wow, I couldn’t believe I got a notification for Te Vaka… I have missed you guys😘🥰🌺

[TheRenaissancer]

Malo ni or Kia ora, here's an old fan of Te vaka from Guangzhou, Canton, the first time I listen your music was in 2017, the time when I just watch the Disney movie Moana, and get stucked in the wonderful cultrue of the whole Polynesia. After this, I learnt lots of phrase of gagana tokelau through your music lyrics.That makes me decided to study in Rotorua of Aotearoa😁😁
I still remember in the first lesson of te reo maori, our teacher asked us why want to learn maori, I answerd, once I understand maori, I can easily understand other polynesian language becasue they are simlar. Also, there's tokelaun classmate in our lesson😁😁
By the way, I have a maori name Kaihopara, do you konw what dose it mean?😁😁😁😁😁😁

[sarahlocci]

Vi ho appena conosciuto e già mi sono innamorata della vostra musica!❤

[iitstre_]

Bro, she’s aging like fine wine. Holy! I didn’t think she could get more gorgeous 🥵

[aaronvoltaire]

I ask for a show in Brazil, Sorocaba -SP

[chrissundorowski]

Te Vaka is to Tokelau what Rammstein is to German when it comes to falling in love with a language and aiming to learn it 💁‍♂

[peggyking]

Are y’all Hawaiians? Forgive me for not being sure?

[Celophanewrap]

Amazing. This guy is entirely too smart. I would love to be able to do that