One of the biggest challenges Chamorro language learners face is speaking naturally and fluidly. Some in our community can understand Chamorro fluently but struggle to form sentences when it’s time to speak. Others grasp the complexities of grammar but freeze up when trying to apply those rules in conversation. Some are conversational, but their Chamorro isn’t as clear or fluid as they’d like. In this post, I’ll share four key study habits that I use to help my speech output become more fluid, natural, and confident. These study habits will be from my perspective as a learner who started from level zero, so please keep that in mind as these study tips may not apply to your learning situation. Happy studying!

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Learn in Chunks Use Repetition & Pattern Recognition Use Chamorro as Much as Possible Listen More!

Study Habit #1: Use Phrase Chunks

To make your speech more fluid, focus on learning and using phrase chunks.

Many learners begin by memorizing individual words, which makes sense when you’re starting from scratch. After all, a language is made up of words, and you need to know them to use the language.

But when it comes to speaking in our native language, we often speak in phrases or chunks of words. While phrases consist of individual words, they usually flow naturally as complete units. You can develop this same fluidity in Chamorro by learning and practicing phrases, alongside building your vocabulary of individual words.

If you’re unsure about the effectiveness of chunking, consider the phrases most learners can confidently say, like key introduction phrases such as I na’ån-hu si ___, Sumåsåga yu’ giya ___, or Machocho’cho’ yu’ gi ___. Many learners can master their introductions but struggle to realize this same fluidity in natural conversation.

The key is to apply this chunking to everything else we learn in the language, not just the most common “canned” phrases. To see what this can look like, let’s walk through a couple of examples.

Example 1: I forgot to _____

Here’s an example of how to start talking about something you forgot to do. The key phrase chunk to memorize and say is Maleffa yu’ ti hu ____. While it’s helpful to know the meaning of each word (maleffa = forget; yu’ = I; ti = negative marker; hu = I), it’s more effective for your speech to absorb this chunk as a whole. You can then complete the sentence with a simple phrase, like in the examples below.

• Maleffa yu’ ti hu chule’ i kafe. (I forgot to take the coffee)
• Maleffa yu’ ti hu fa’tinas i kafe. (I forgot to make the coffee)
• Maleffa yu’ ti hu fåhan i kafe. (I forgot to buy the coffee)

Example 2: Before I _____ anything

Another recent example from my own studies is how to express actions that happened before something else, like ‘Before I said anything’ or ‘Before I bought anything.’ Our phrase chunk to memorize and practice is Åntes di u guaha ___. Or for the fino’ håya learners, you can say Mo’na nai u guaha ___.

Again, knowing the individual words is helpful (åntes di = before; u = future marker; guaha = there exists), but for our speaking fluidity it’s more important to internalize this phrase as a whole. Then simply complete the sentence with a possessive phrase, like the examples below.

• Åntes di u guaha sinangån-hu (Before I said anything)
• Åntes di u guaha finahån-hu (Before I bought anything)
• Åntes di u guaha finaisen-hu (Before I asked anything)

Key Takeaway: Start memorizing and using phrases or chunks in your speech. This will help make your speaking more natural and fluid, as you won’t be stringing your sentences together word-by-word.

Study Habit #2: Use Repetition & Pattern Recognition

Chamorro language learners often struggle to speak fluidly and naturally because we tend to overthink. In my experience, this happens because much of the Chamorro language instruction for adults today focuses heavily on teaching grammar rules and expecting learners to construct their sentences from “the ground up” based upon those rules. While a grammar-first approach helps us understand how sentences are structured and the ‘why’ behind the language, it doesn’t always translate into building confident speakers.

One important way to counter this is to ‘turn off’ our tendency to overanalyze the rules, which is often triggered by a grammar-first approach. If we can set aside that analysis and focus on practicing our sentences without overthinking, it will carry over into our speaking.

An effective approach to turn “off” our overthinking is to repeat well-designed sentence drills, over and over and over. And before you run away screaming at the thought of sentence drills, hear me out: Repetition is crucial for mastering any new skill. When we repeat things, they become ingrained through constant practice until it feels automatic.

The same applies to speaking Chamorro. Focus on practicing specific, isolated patterns until they become second nature. If you do, you’ll find that those patterns will just pop into your head and flow out in your speech without much thought, even if you “forget” the rules in the moment. By practicing drills, we emphasize actually using Chamorro rather than testing our recall of grammar rules.

And for our sentence drills, we want to be intentional about how we make them. We should use drills that maximize the repetition of a key concept and minimize variation between sentences. The repetition gives us the repeated exposure we need, and minimizing variation between sentences lets our brains detect the pattern, making it easier to absorb. Let’s see what this looks like:

Example 3: Pattern Recognition

Without telling you any rules or defining any words, I want you to read the first three rows in the table below. For the empty rows, complete the pattern based on those first three rows:

Verb	Sentence
sangåni	Masangåni yu’.
kasse	Makasse yu’.
fa’nå’gue	Mafa’nå’gue yu’.
faisen
tattiyi
li’e’

If it felt suspiciously easy for you to fill in the blanks with Mafaisen yu’; Matattiyi yu’; Mali’e’ yu’, even if you didn’t know what the words meant, then let me assure you that there is no trick. You were correct!

Let’s try this exercise one more time, but with a more complicated sentence from the previous study tip.

Example 4: Pattern Recognition

Read the first three rows of the table below, then complete the pattern in the empty rows based on those first three rows:

Verb	Sentence
chule’	Maleffa yu’ ti hu chule’ i kafe
fa’tinas	Maleffa yu’ ti hu fa’tinas i kafe
fåhan	Maleffa yu’ ti hu fåhan i kafe
nginge’
gimen
tånña’

For these drills, the empty rows were Maleffa yu’ ti hu nginge’ i kafe; Maleffa yu’ ti hu gimen i kafe; Maleffa yu’ ti hu tånña’ i kafe. Great job!

Key Takeaway: Practice makes permanent, so focus on repeating sentence drills to get Chamorro sentence patterns ingrained in your mind. Once you’ve internalized the correct patterns through repeated exposure, knowing all the rules becomes less important.

Study Habit #3: Use Chamorro as Much as Possible

To apply the previous two study tips, practice using Chamorro as much as you can. We have to actually get the words out of our mouths, which may feel awkward at first, but with consistent practice over time it will become easier. If you don’t live with a native speaker or are unable to converse with a native speaker regularly, here are some things that I recommend you do in your own time:

• Talk out loud to yourself in Chamorro
• Talk to your pets in Chamorro
• Keep a daily voice note journal in Chamorro
• Send voice notes to your practice group / study buddies
• Sing along to Chamorro songs
• Read Chamorro stories or other Chamorro writing out loud
• Take advantage of every opportunity in study groups and classes to speak Chamorro

Important Note About Receiving Corrections: When you are outputting in Chamorro, it is ideal if you have people around to correct you. Any second language learner, regardless of our level or how long we have been learning, needs corrections and can improve. Corrections make our Chamorro better, and they ensure that we don’t cement ourselves into poor habits or bad Chamorro that will be harder to correct in the long-term.

And when you are not actually speaking Chamorro, you can also do other activities in your study time to directly impact your speaking. These include:

• Practicing sentence drills or phrases
• Keep a daily journal written in Chamorro, allowing you to slow down and process

Key Takeaway: It’s not enough to “know” the rules and words, we need to actually use the language! Take every opportunity to speak, because it’s only through actually using the language that our speaking will improve. And if you have people around you to correct you, even better.

Study Habit #4: Listen More!

While many of us are very eager to start speaking in Chamorro, I want to emphasize that if you did not grow up with a lot of Chamorro at home (like me), the single most important thing you can do to improve your speaking is to listen to the language. We cannot speak Chamorro well if we don’t know what it’s supposed to sound like.

There are plenty of audio recordings online of native speakers giving interviews, telling stories, and singing songs. And if you cannot understand spoken Chamorro very well, I would recommend that you listen to audio that has the Chamorro transcript AND the English translation. This will help you connect sounds to words, and then the translation will help you make sense of what is being said.

Here are my recommended Chamorro listening resources:

• The stories on this blog
• The songs on this blog
• Stories and Songs on the blog by Påle’ Eric Forbes

Key Takeaway: Listen, listen, and listen some more. Speaking Chamorro well starts with knowing what the language is supposed to sound like, so we can mimic and reproduce the correct sounds and thought patterns. If you need support in your listening, make sure to listen while reading along with a Chamorro transcript.