Māori Grammar

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The children are running from the house to the school

i to Indicate direction from

The particle i has many uses, one of which is to indicate movement away from a place — usually translated as “from”.

I haere mai au i te whare.
I came from the house

However, i has a range of alternative meanings. Depending on the context, i can describe a location as well as a source. With a verb of movement, this can sometimes make the meaning ambiguous: i te whare might mean “from the house” or “at/in the house”.

While i has a very large range of meanings in a variety of sentence stuctures, in this content it has ttwo meanings that are particularly relevant here: either motion away from a location ("from the house") or location somewhere ("in the house") - and the exact meaning is determined by context but might be ambiguous.

For example if the mother is angry because the children are running i te whare it probably means that they were running in the house (though not necessarily so). If the police chase a thief running i te toa it probably means he was running from the shop.

In order to be more precise, a speaker could add to the sentence:

Kei te oma ahau i roto i te whare.
I am running inside the house.

Kei te oma ahau i mua i te whare.
I am running in front of the house.

Kei te oma ahau i te taha o te whare.
I am running by the side of the house.

When expressing a journey from one place to another, the usual order is the starting point with i followed by the destination with ki.

Kei te oma ahau i te whare ki te kura.
I am running from the house to the school.