{"id":3856,"date":"2015-05-26T16:33:18","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T15:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=3856"},"modified":"2026-08-25T13:17:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:17:03","slug":"language-of-the-week-samoan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/language-of-the-week-samoan","title":{"rendered":"Language of the Week: Samoan"},"content":{"rendered":"

To celebrate Samoan Language Week<\/a>\u00a0which runs from 24th May to 1st June this year, here are ten facts about this beautiful language and nation, which many of us know very little about.<\/p>\n

If you fancy giving it a try, you can now start learning Samoan for free with uTalk<\/a>. And for this week only, we’ve reduced the price of the Essentials and Premium upgrades to \u00a32.99 and \u00a36.99 (usually \u00a37.99 and \u00a311.99).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

10 Facts about Samoan<\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Samoan is a member of the Polynesian language family, one of the oldest branches\u00a0still in existence today.<\/li>\n
  2. It’s the official language of Samoa, where it has approximately 200,000 native speakers.<\/li>\n
  3. It’s also spoken in New Zealand, where it’s the third\u00a0most-spoken language, after English and M\u0101ori.<\/li>\n
  4. The Samoan language is written using a Latin-based alphabet.<\/li>\n
  5. Samoan’s alphabet has just 14 letters: 5 vowels\u00a0and 9 consonants. 3 more consonants – H, K and R – are used in loan words from other languages.<\/li>\n
  6. The Samoan flag’s upper left quarter is blue and has\u00a0five white, five-rayed stars representing the Southern Cross. The rest of the flag is red.<\/li>\n
  7. Samoa consists of seven islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The two main islands are Savai\u2019i and Upolu.<\/li>\n
  8. It takes 20 hours to fly to Samoa from London.<\/li>\n
  9. Lu\u2019au is a traditional Samoan dish,\u00a0consisting of\u00a0coconut cream, onions and taro, wrapped in taro leaves and then cooked.<\/li>\n
  10. Samoans are known throughout Polynesia as ‘happy people’.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    <\/h3>\n

    5 Samoan proverbs<\/h2>\n

    The Samoan language is full of proverbs and idioms; here are five of our favourites:<\/p>\n

    E pala le ma<\/strong>\u02bb<\/strong>a, a e le pala le upu<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Translation: Even stones decay, but words endure.<\/p>\n

    A reminder of the damage that\u00a0hurtful words can do.<\/p>\n

    \"E<\/a><\/p>\n

    Ia malu le vai i lou finagalo<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Translation: May your mind be like cool water.<\/p>\n

    This phrase is used to ask someone for forgiveness if you’ve offended them.<\/p>\n

    \"Ia<\/a><\/p>\n

    Se’i fono le pa’a ma ona vae<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Translation: Let the crab take counsel with its legs.<\/p>\n

    This proverb advises us to think things through before we take action.<\/p>\n

    \"Se'i<\/a><\/p>\n

    Amuia le masina, e alu ma toe sau<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Translation: Fortunate is the moon, to go and then return.TranslationHumans only get one life, unlike the moon; so we should make the most of it.<\/p>\n

    Humans only get one life, unlike the moon; so we should make the most of it.<\/p>\n

    \"Amuia<\/a><\/p>\n

    Ua \u2018afa le aso<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Translation: A day for plaiting \u2018afa.<\/p>\n

    A rainy day. \u2018Afa is a plaited rope made from dried coconut fibres, and used in architecture and boat building.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Ua<\/a><\/p>\n

    We’ll be sharing more fun facts about Samoan as the week goes on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    To celebrate Samoan Language Week\u00a0which runs from 24th May to 1st June this year, here are ten facts about this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1831],"tags":[3985],"class_list":["post-3856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-samoan","tag-general"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":3856},"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":1831,"label":"Samoan"}],"post_tag":[{"value":3985,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Richard Howeson","author_link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/author\/richard"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":1831,"name":"Samoan","slug":"samoan","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1831,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1831,"category_count":3,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Samoan","category_nicename":"samoan","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":3985,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3985,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":135,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10426,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions\/10426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}