Lesson 07: How to Say “Because” in Chamorro – “I’m tired because I’m hungry”

At the beginning of our learning, we can be focused on a lot of small sentences. Up until now these are the sentences we’ve learned how to make, sentences like “I am tired”; “They are students”; “We are tired students.” Now we are going to start making our thoughts a little longer by linking these short sentences with the word “because.” So instead of many small, disconnected thoughts we can start to smooth out our speech with sentences like “I am tired because I am a student.” In this post we will learn about the word sa’ in Chamorro and how to use it. Happy studying!

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I inai yan i tasi

Now that I’m learning Chamoru, one thing I love to do is write little stories. Earlier this year I read some English translations of work by Misuzu Kaneko, a Japanese writer of children’s poetry. Her poems charmed me with their deep empathy for the world around her, whether it was the man selling flowers or the road buried under the snow. To write my own stories, I pull inspiration both from her poetry and my memories of my grandmother. This is the first story I attempted, about the sand and the ocean.

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Connecting Thoughts in Chamorro With But – “I’m hungry, but I’m not thirsty.”

Using lao is a great way to start connecting thoughts at the beginner stage and beyond. Up until now we can say things like “I am not hungry. I am thirsty.” With lao we can start to string together our basic sentences into more complete thoughts with sentences like “I am not hungry, but I am thirsty.”

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Keeping a Daily Journal in Chamoru

In a previous post I mentioned that I keep a daily journal written in Chamoru. Now I’ve hit a milestone: two months of journaling daily! Writing a journal entry in Chamoru every day has been so challenging, but also incredibly rewarding both personally and as a language learner. In this post I reflect on what I’ve learned and offer my thoughts on keeping a daily journal as a beginner.

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Lesson 05: How to Say “Not” in Chamorro – “I am not hungry.”

In past lessons, we’ve focused on how to describe people and things in a positive way — like “I am hungry” or “The woman is a singer.” Now it’s time to flip that! In this lesson, you’ll learn how to say what you’re not — like “I’m not hungry” or “The woman is not a singer.”To create these sentences, we’ll learn about the Negative Marker “Ti” and how to use it to make negative statements. This post includes lesson notes, example sentences in Chamorro, audio pronunciations and a Quizlet Deck for supplementary practice. Happy studying!

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