IKEA will correct errors in M\u0101ori language signs at its flagship Auckland store after problems with the translation were pointed out on social media.<\/p>\n
The signs at the Sylvia Park store, which points to the Swedish restaurant and caf\u00e9, reads “wharekai & k\u0101fe sw\u012bni”, but there are no letter Fs or Ss in the M\u0101ori alphabet.<\/p>\n
A photo of the sign was posted to Reddit on Monday, sparking debate over whether the translation was correct. <\/p>\n
Many users said that \u201cK\u0101fe Sw\u012bni\u201d missed the mark.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, doesn\u2019t seem right. Just \u2018Wharekai Huitene\u2019 would have worked,” one commenter wrote.<\/p>\n
IKEA\u2019s first store in NZ opens in Auckland\u2019s Sylvia Park to excitement but not the chaos some had predicted.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Another took a more forgiving view: “It\u2019s a shame it was mistranslated, but at the same time, ka pai for the attempt.”<\/p>\n
Others were less charitable.<\/p>\n
“If I went to Sweden and used their national language on signage for my business, I\u2019d make sure it was checked by a native speaker. They clearly didn\u2019t do that here in Aotearoa,” one person said.<\/p>\n
An Ikea spokesperson said the company had already been made aware of an inaccuracy with the restaurant sign and was \u201ccurrently consulting with our trusted M\u0101ori partners on all existing in-store signage to make any corrections to te reo M\u0101ori needed\u201d.<\/p>\n
“IKEA New Zealand is committed to authenticity and cultural sensitivity in all of our communications everywhere we operate throughout the world.<\/p>\n
“From the outset of our journey to enter Aotearoa, we have engaged professional M\u0101ori cultural advisors to develop cultural competency within our teams and strengthen our understanding of the M\u0101ori world view.<\/p>\n
“We are fully committed to using te reo M\u0101ori appropriately and respectfully, and we take all feedback very seriously.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IKEA will correct errors in M\u0101ori language signs at its flagship Auckland store after problems with the translation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,138,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-209779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}