Beginning – tīmatanga
A rugby coach is showing his new assistant the ropes. The assistant has a massive, hound dog’s tongue hanging out. The coach points to his team and says “To start with, I’d like you to give my team a tounging.”
End/cease – mutu
A man is auditioning for a stage role, and is demonstrating a wide range of barnyard noises: chicken clucks, pig oinks, sheep baas etc. The man running the audition says “Ok, enough, stop, end, cease! Can you moo too?”
in the future – ā tōna wā
A man looks into the future, and sees himself running. The future man suddenly pulls up lame and says “Ah’ve torn a – Waaah!.”
the Future/the time to come – ā mua
A father and son stands looking at a mooing cow in a storefront window. “One day in the future, in the time to come,” the father says, “that will be our mooer.”
right now/presently/currently – i nāia nei
An iron sculpture in the shape of the letter A is being appraised by a crowd. A woman says “Right now, this is an iron A, but with the right magic we can make it a silver or even a golden one.”
Past – pāhi
A woman meets a slim man and exclaims “Trevor! You used to be so fat!” The man replies “Yes, in the past I ate a pie every day.”
Time – tāima
Two terrorists are sitting on a park bench. One of them asks “What’s the time?” The other one opens up a suitcase containing a bomb to get a look at the timer.
before – i mua atu/nō mua atu
Two art patrons go to an art gallery, only to find that the walls are all blank and empty. One of them looks to the other “There used to be a lot more art before.”
during – ai
A cyclops is talking to a friend on a telephone. He says “Yes, it was during my eye surgery that I realised…”
after – i muri iho
A Maori man says “I yell into the hills, and after that I hear a Maori echo.” He faces the hills and yells “Ka mate!” and the hills echo back “Ka ora!”
since – mai rānō
An old man sitting on a tame rhinoceros tells a daring story about how he broke it out of captivity. He concludes with “ever since then, he’s been my rhino.”
long time ago – noa atu
A man is sitting on a bench when another man comes up to him, being closely followed by the R2D2 robot from Star Wars. The second man gestures to R2D2 and asks “Have you met?” The seated man replies “I’ve known R2 since a long time ago.”
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This wordlist is an except from Learn Te Reo With Mnemonics, a book being compiled by Jeff Ngatai for an expected release at the beginning of 2020.