2025: Un Dångkulu na Si Yu’us Ma’åse!

On By Schyuler LujanIn AnnouncementsLeave a comment

We know it has been quiet here on the blog and in our practice groups as we take time for a family loss, and we so appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding. But as 2025 comes to a close, we wanted to say Un Dångkulu Na Si Yu’us Ma’åse to all of you – our Saturday practice groups, our readers on the blog and all our supporters. It is so inspiring for us to see all the time, care and effort you put into learning the Chamorro language. We’d like to take a moment to share a mini recap of the year, along with a few shoutouts:

Blog Views: This year the blog reached over 97,000 98,000 total views, which has left us absolutely staggered! We know that learning Chamorro in adulthood can be a huge challenge, so it’s exciting to know that our passion project here on the blog might be helping you on your journey.

Virtual Tip Jar: We’d also like to extend a heartfelt Si Yu’us Ma’åse to everyone who has supported us through our Buy Me A Coffee page. Every contribution goes directly back into sustaining this blog and into the tools that help us do this work more efficiently. Please know that your support truly goes a long way, and we appreciate each and every one of you. And dångkulu na kulu to our monthly subscribers nanayanneni, Lenika Cruz, Jake, Jaynina, Ungacta, and Frankt! We are so humbled by your monthly support 💛

Saturday Practice Groups: A large chunk of what we do here is inspired by our Saturday practice groups. The content on the blog and our own learning would not be the same without these spaces or the people who show up for them. Many of us have been gathering in these spaces for years, and a few of us have been together since the beginning. In agradesi hamyu ✨

Lessons and Notes: In 2025, I experimented more with learning directly from the language itself—by observing patterns—rather than relying so heavily on grammar texts, as I had in the past. This shift has made learning Chamorro feel more natural and it has significantly broadened how and what I learn. As a result, the lessons on this blog are subtly evolving to reflect this new approach and I’m really excited about all the new content ahead😊

2026: As a look ahead, Jay and I plan to focus more intentionally on our lesson content, with the goal of finally completing our beginner series. We also recognize that learning works best when it’s interactive, so we’ll be exploring ways to build in more engagement—using thoughtful learning design while keeping our approach sustainable and scalable. And in the background I’ll be ramping up my transcription and data collection efforts. Other than that, it will be work as usual on the blog and in our practice groups 🙂

Un dångkulu na Si Yu’us Ma’åse everyone! And here’s to another year ahead of learning and using the Chamorro language😊. Remember to be kind to yourself, patient on your journey, and to keep going. We got this!

Searching for Crabs

On By jay.cheleIn Chamorro StoriesLeave a comment

The next story for our Saturday practice group is about a father and son, providing a warm narrative that frames the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next. This will be one of the longer pieces that we’ve used for our group, and for good reason: we get to see both a small slice of the life led by the father-son pair as well as several sets of instructions that detail the fabrication and use of various types of traps and other implements for gathering crabs under different conditions. And on a more personal note, our friend Dabit will be facilitating several Saturday practice sessions in our stead while we take some time for a loss in our family.

As ever, in this post you’ll find the Chamorro text, an English translation, and an audio narration by Jay Che’le. Footnotes to follow. Happy reading!

Continue reading “Searching for Crabs” →

Kåntan Chamoru: Suetti Hao

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro SongsLeave a comment

Last week our friend Alicia won the vote to choose our song for Praktikan Pupuengi, and she chose this one from the Guam Sirenas. It is so fun, cute and high-energy, with the singer is declaring who she is choosing to be her sweetheart (and she makes it very clear that she did have options!). The quick, clipped pace of this song, combined with some challenging sound quality, meant this one took longer than usual for our group to transcribe. There was even one little phrase that gave us trouble, and we’re still not 100% certain we got it right. But we made it through, and honestly, we had such a great time along the way.

As always, this post includes Chamorro lyrics and an English translation for Suetti Hao by the Guam Sirenas. Happy listening!

Continue reading “Kåntan Chamoru: Suetti Hao” →

What’s the Deal with “Hit” in Chamorro? – When Colloquial Speech Doesn’t Follow the Rules

On By Schyuler LujanIn Personal WritingLeave a comment

Prefer to listen? Hear this essay narrated below on Spotify:

When I started learning Chamorro, I quickly realized that knowing the literal meaning of words did not guarantee that I would understand what was actually being communicated. One of the phrases that taught me this was Ågang hit – which I first heard in conversation with an aunty or uncle. They were saying “Call me”, but with hit (“us”) instead of yu’ (“me”). At the time it really confused me because it didn’t match the grammar rules I was taught. But now, with five additional years of language exposure and a revelation from a certain British baking show, I understand this Chamorro speech pattern in a different way. In this post, I’m going to explore this phenomenon in spoken Chamorro – when hit is switched for yu’ – and how I’ve come to a new understanding of its function in the language.

Continue reading “What’s the Deal with “Hit” in Chamorro? – When Colloquial Speech Doesn’t Follow the Rules” →

Everyday Speech: How to Say “Our Neighbor Totoro” in Chamorro

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Intermediate4 Comments

Sometimes when we talk about the people in our lives, we want to mention both their name and our relationship to them—like “My nephew Lathan” or “Our neighbor Totoro.” In Chamorro, there’s a specific way to express these kinds of phrases using the article as. In this post, we’ll practice this simple pattern that adds a subtle depth to everyday conversation. As always, you’ll find example sentences, English translations, and Chamorro audio narrations by Jay Che’le to guide your learning. Happy studying!

(Image Note: This is a Totoro-inspired AI illustration, generated for educational/non-commercial use on this blog).

Continue reading “Everyday Speech: How to Say “Our Neighbor Totoro” in Chamorro” →