Our Saturday evening practice group listened to this last weekend, and our friend Dabit was on fire with his listening comprehension. Meanwhile with my listening comprehension, it was as though my ears were plugged up with cotton! Listening comprehension is always and forever my weakest skill, which is why I appreciate our Saturday evening practice sessions that focus entirely on listening. If this song sounds familiar to you, that’s because it’s a cover of “Ten Feet Away” by Keith Whitley. As always, Chamorro lyrics and an English translation are included in this post for the song “Dies Pasu Guatu” by the Castro Boyz. Happy listening!
Continue reading “Kåntan Chamoru: Dies Pasu Guatu”Year: 2024
Lesson 33: Talking About Your Food in Chamorro – “My Breadfruit”
In this post, we’ll continue learning Chamorro patterns for talking about what belongs to us. This time, we’ll focus on how to talk about food that belongs to you or someone else—phrases like “my breadfruit” or “your apple.” Chamorro uses special words in these kinds of possessive phrases, especially when talking about food, drinks, and animals. In this lesson, we’ll start with the food pattern and practice using it in clear, everyday examples to help it feel natural. Happy studying!
Continue reading “Lesson 33: Talking About Your Food in Chamorro – “My Breadfruit””
How The Deer Tricked the Crocodiles
Here is a short, humorous story about a little deer who manages to trick a river full of crocodiles. This is another story we found in the Pacific Languages Collection at UH Manoa, several years ago. I had been trying to find this story for weeks because I couldn’t remember the title, and luckily my friend Alicia pulled up this story in no time. In this post, the Chamorro text, an English translation, and a Chamorro audio narration by Jay Che’le are included. Happy reading!
Speech Attribution in Chamorro part 2: Using the -IN- Infix
This post is part 2 of the blog series on Chamorro speech attribution, where we learn about the most common ways we can indicate who is speaking in a story (ie: he said, she asked, the woman asked her, etc.). Understanding speech attribution helps us if we are reading or listening to stories in the language, if we want to write our own stories, or if we are interested in translating existing works into Chamorro. It can also give our speaking and storytelling more flavor 😉 In this post we will learn about speech attribution patterns that use the -IN- infix. This post includes an introduction to the -IN- infix, how to transform words with this affix, and practice drills. All Chamorro drills include audio in Chamorro. This is a fairly long post, with 10 sections of practice drills. Happy studying!
Continue reading “Speech Attribution in Chamorro part 2: Using the -IN- Infix”
Carolinian Story: The Good Child
Here is a story from the Caroline Islands, retold in Chamorro by Dolores Marciano, about a child who goes on a couple of adventures to help the chief of his village. This post includes the Chamorro text, a Chamorro audio narration by Jay Che’le, and an English translation. Happy reading!
Lengguahi-ta 