This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

In this lesson, we’ll learn how to make simple action sentences where a person is the one doing the action — sentences like “The woman ate” or “The child will run.” Up to now, we’ve only used pronouns as our subjects so you could focus on word order and how the verbs change. Now we’ll add real people into our sentences to make them feel more natural and varied. You’ll practice building past, present, and future sentences, and every Chamorro example comes with audio so you can hear how it all sounds. Happy studying!

Contents

1. Introduction to Noun Subjects
2. How to Say “The woman danced”
3. How to Say “The woman is dancing”
4. How to Say “The woman will dance”
5. ➡️ Keep Learning! Continue to the Next Lesson

Introduction to Noun Subjects

Saying sentences like “The woman danced” or “The woman shouted” are examples of talking about actions where a noun is the one doing the action. These differ from the patterns we’ve practiced up to this point, where the doer was always a pronoun, such as in “She danced. They shouted.”

In this lesson, we’ll learn the patterns for making these kinds of sentences, which are action sentences with transitive verbs (action words that aren’t don’t to someone or something else) and noun subjects. Specifically, we’ll learn the following:

• Talking about past actions: “The woman danced”
• Talking about current actions: “The woman is dancing”
• Talking about future actions: “The woman will dance”

How to Say “The woman danced”

For these sentences, we will be using our intransitive verbs that have been verbalized, and the subject will follow this verb. The sentence structure we will use is:

Past Tense Intransitive Verb + [ i + Noun ]

To get used to this pattern, let’s try out some sentences that use the same subject, i palao’an:

Intransitive Verb	Chamoru	English
baila	Bumaila i palao’an.	The woman danced.
essalao	Umessalao i palao’an.	The woman shouted.
såga	Sumåga i palao’an.	The woman stayed.
tånges	Tumånges i palao’an.	The woman cried.
ossitan	Umossitan i palao’an.	The woman joked.

Now let’s practice with a variety of subjects and intransitive verbs:

Chamoru	English
Dumeskånsa i yo’åmte’.	The healer rested.
Umo’mak i sotterita.	The young woman bathed.
Umåsson i nana.	The mother laid down.
Macho’cho’ i á’arekla.	The repairman worked.
Matå’chong i fafa’cho’cho’.	The worker sat down.
Tuma’yok i patgon.	The child jumped.
Mamokkat i karabao.	The water buffalo walked.
Maigo’ i neni.	The baby slept.
Malågu i mannok.	The chicken ran.
Chumålek i macheng.	The monkey laughed.

How to Say “The woman is dancing”

Now we will bring these sentences into the present or continuous tense by reduplicating our verb. The sentence structure remains the same:

Present Tense Intransitive Verb + [ i + Noun ]

Let’s practice this pattern with the same subject, i palao’an:

Intransitive Verb	Chamoru	English
bábaila	Bumábaila i palao’an.	The woman is dancing.
é’essalao	Umé’essalao i palao’an.	The woman is shouting.
sásaga	Sumåsaga i palao’an.	The woman is staying.
tåtånges	Tumåtånges i palao’an.	The woman is crying.
ó’ossitan	Umó’ossitan i palao’an.	The woman is joking.

Now we will practice with more examples:

Chamoru	English
Dumeskåkånsa i yo’åmte’.	The healer is resting.
Umó’omak i sotterita.	The young woman is bathing.
Umå’åsson i nana.	The mother is laying down.
Machócho’cho’ i á’arekla.	The repairman is working.
Matåtå’chong i fafa’cho’cho’.	The worker is sitting down.
Tumáta’yok i patgon.	The child is jumping.
Mamómokkat i karabao.	The water buffalo is walking.
Mámaigo’ i neni.	The baby is sleeping.
Malålågu i mannok.	The chicken is running.
Chumåchålek i macheng.	The monkey is laughing.

How to Say “The woman will dance”

For our last sentence structure, we will be adding noun subjects to our future tense statements. We will be putting the noun subject in front of the future marker, and the intransitive verb will be in its root form (unless it requires special transformation for future tense). The word order we will use is:

[ i + Noun ] + Para u + Future Tense Intransitive Verb

Now let’s practice these sentences with one subject, i palao’an:

Intransitive Verb	Chamoru	English
baila	I palao’an para u baila.	The woman will dance.
essalao	I palao’an para u essalao.	The woman will shout.
såga	I palao’an para u såga.	The woman will stay.
tånges	I palao’an para u tånges.	The woman will cry.
ossitan	I palao’an para u ossitan.	The woman will joke.

And now we will practice with a variety of subjects and verbs:

Chamoru	English
I yo’åmte’ para u deskånsa.	The healer will rest.
I sotterita para u o’mak.	The young woman will bathe.
I nana para u åsson.	The mother will lay down.
I á’arekla para u facho’cho’.	The repairman will work.
I fafa’cho’cho’ para u fatå’chong.	The worker will sit down.
I patgon para u ta’yok.	The child will jump.
I karabao para u famokkat.	The water buffalo will walk.
I neni para u maigo’.	The baby will sleep.
I mannok para u falågu.	The chicken will run.
I macheng para u chålek.	The monkey will laugh.

➡️ Keep Learning! Continue to the Next Lesson

And believe it or not, this is the last post in our beginner series on making basic action sentences in Chamorro! We’ve gone over a lot of different concepts so far, including the differences between transitive and intransitive verbs, how to make sentences with those verbs in past tense, present/continous tense, future tense, and imperative tense. We’ve even explored other sentence types such as with debidi, siña, malago’, and ya-. Awesome job!

To continue to the next section of lessons, which covers possessive pronouns in Chamorro, click on the link below:

Saying “My, Yours, Hers” – An Introduction to Possessive Pronouns in Chamorro

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