This song is a highly political one, and Jay was saying that it was written around the time that the military build-up on Guam was first discussed. In this song, there is both a lament about the way things keep changing, and a call to do more for the islands and our people than to just stand up (which is potentially a poke at the “Fanohge Chamoru”, but that’s just our guess). So here are Chamorro lyrics and an English translation for “Håfa” by Daniel De Leon Guerrero. Happy listening!
Continue reading “Håfa by Daniel De Leon Guerrero – Chamorro Lyrics and English Translation”Year: 2024
How To Introduce Yourself in Chamorro: 70 Phrases to Get Started
One of the first things we may become comfortable with when learning a new language is how to introduce ourselves. Practicing how to introduce ourselves is great because it is highly personal and is something we might say often in group settings. In this post, I’ve included 70 phrases to get us started with some basic introductions. At the end of the post, there are some examples of full introductions in Chamorro. Audio is also included for each phrase. Happy studying!
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Truly Beautiful
Here’s a short, funny story about a married couple that gave me a really good laugh. Jay also thought it was funny, and when he was recording the narration he had to stop to laugh again because of the ending. This story is from the book “Estoriåye Yo'” by Påle’ Eric Forbes, which is great reading (at least I think so!) if we’re trying to learn Chamorro. Our practice group will be finishing up our reading and translation of “The Old Pirate” this week, but if we have time we will also read and translate this short story.
This post includes the Chamorro text, a Chamorro audio narration by Jay Che’le, the English translation, and a Quizlet flashcard study deck to learn the story in phrase chunks. Happy reading!
Carmelita by Chris Kaipat – Chamorro Lyrics and English Translation
Here’s another energetic song for anyone who likes to dance. We transcribed and translated this song last November in our Saturday evening practice group. My backlog of songs from our Saturday evening praktika is quite long… but I’m slowly catching up! We’ve also refreshed our song list for 2024 because we are almost finished with our original song list from 2023, so there’s plenty more coming! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this song, “Carmelita” by Chris Kaipat. As always, Chamorro lyrics and an English translation are included in this post. Happy listening!
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Introduction to Transitive Verbs in Chamorro – Talking about Actions and Objects
This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.
If we are getting started in making basic action sentences in Chamorro, a common starting place for learners is making transitive statements which are sentences like “I drank the coffee” or “She prepared the food.” Before we get started with making these types of sentences, let’s learn a little more about the verbs used, which are called transitive verbs. In this post we’ll go over some practical ways to understand what transitive verbs are and the features of transitive sentences that matter the most in Chamorro.
If you are at a more intermediate level, check out my post on The Man- Prefix for Transitive Verbs as it has similar content but expands to understanding how to use the MAN- prefix with transitive verbs. Happy studying!
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Lengguahi-ta 