In Chamorro, some verbs don’t just need an action—they need a recipient. If you give something, someone must receive it. If you teach something, someone must learn it. These types of verbs require not just the thing being acted upon, but also the person receiving the action. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at how this concept is applied in Chamorro, start practicing with some of the most common verbs that are used this way, and explain why these verbs can be challenging for our English-oriented brains. By the end, you’ll have a better grasp of this concept by practicing with commonly used verbs. Happy studying!
Doing things for or to someone: The basics
When we begin learning Chamorro, we may be taught to use the word para to talk about doing something to or for someone, such as in the following sentence.
Hu fa’tinas i kafé para hågu = I made the coffee for you
While the above example is syntactically correct, it reflects a more English way of expressing these types of thoughts. In Chamorro, we can actually drop the para and use a different verb that encapsulates the entire meaning of “making something for someone.”
This also means the verb will usually take two objects. In this context of our sentence above, this would be the something that we are making (coffee), and the someone we are making it for (you).
In other posts, we will practice using different prefixes and suffixes to transform other verbs into this form. But for now, we will just focus on learning and practicing with the most commonly used verbs that take two objects as our introduction to this topic.
Common verbs that take two objects
Let’s look at some commonly used verbs that take two objects. You may already be familiar with these words and use them often in your speech, in either Chamorro or English. These verbs are in the table below:
| fa’nå’gue | (Transitive Vb.) To teach something to someone |
| gågao | (Transitive Vb.) To ask something of someone |
| nå’i | (Transitive Vb.) To give something to someone |
| fa’nu’i | (Transitive Vb.) To show something to someone |
| sangåni | (Transitive Vb.) To tell something to someone |
| tugi’i | (Transitive Vb.) To write something to someone |
| fa’tinåsi | (Transitive Vb.) To make something for someone |
| cho’guiyi | (Transitive Vb.) To do something for someone |
| na’ayao | (Transitive Vb.) To lend something to someone |
| na’hanaogue | (Transitive Vb.) To send something to someone |
| na’klaruyi | (Transitive Vb.) To clarify something to someone |
Note on the Someone in the Definitions: For the sake of simplicity, I used the word someone to indicate who we are doing the action to or for. But the someone doesn’t have to be a person. You can tell a story to your friend, the moon, or your dog. Or you can prepare a snack for your children, just like you can prepare a snack for your cat.
How These Verbs Use Two Objects
The verbs in the previous section all have two objects when we use them in Chamorro. Both have a someone and a something, which is reflected in the definitions above.
The key thing to remember about these verbs is that the someone will typically be closest to the verb. We can indicate this someone with a Yu’ type pronoun (him, her, you, them); a noun (the child, the woman, the dog); or a person’s name (Guadalupe, Maria, Juanit).
The something will be usually farther away from the verb. It can be stated as a specific object (the coffee, the lesson, the book) or a non-specific object (some coffee, a lesson, a book, it). Depending on the object, we may need to pair the object with a particle, such as nu or ni (which is a contraction of nu + i).
Now that we have some common verbs and an idea of the Chamorro syntax, let’s put it all together with some example sentences.
Example sentences: “I taught them the math lesson”
In our first set of example sentences, we will practice with this word order:
| Hu Type Pronoun + Verb + Yu’ Type Pronoun + ni Object |
The Yu’ Type Pronoun represents the someone, the who we are doing the action to or for. The ni + Object represents the something. In these drills we will talk about a specific something, such as “the coffee, the lesson, the story” which is why we are using ni, but you will also read or hear this as nu i.
To keep it simple, all the drills will be in the past tense. Let’s first do some drills with the word fa’nå’gue:
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha ni leksíon matimatika. | I taught them the math lesson. |
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha ni leksíon grammatika. | I taught them the grammar lesson. |
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha ni leksíon Chamoru. | I taught them the Chamorro lesson. |
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha ni leksíon historia. | I taught them the history lesson. |
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha ni leksíon bíblia. | I taught them the Bible lesson. |
Now let’s do some example sentences with the rest of the verbs:
| Hu gågao hao ni ayudu-mu. | I asked you for your help. |
| Un nå’i yu’ ni lemmai. | You gave me the breadfruit. |
| Ma fa’nu’i ham ni liyang. | They showed us the cave. |
| In sangåni siha ni estoria. | We told them the story. |
| Hu tugi’i hamyo ni katta. | I wrote you the letter. |
| In fa’tinåsi hamyo ni kafé. | We made you the coffee. |
| Ma cho’guiyi yu’ ni che’cho’-hu. | They did my work for me. |
| Ha na’ayao hao ni salåppi’. | She lent you the money. |
| Ha na’hanaogue yu’ ni paketi. | He sent me the package. |
| En na’klaruyi yu’ ni kantan Chamoru. | You clarified the Chamorro song to me. |
Example sentences: “I taught them a math lesson”
In this second set of practice sentences we will do drills with a non-specific something such as “some coffee, a lesson, a story” rather than “the coffee, the lesson, the story.”
The only difference between this sentence structure and the previous sentence structure is that we will remove the ni. Here is the word order of our new sentences:
| Hu Type Pronoun + Verb + Yu’ Type Pronoun + Object |
Let’s first do some drills with the word fa’nå’gue:
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha leksíon matimatika. | I taught them a math lesson. |
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha leksíon grammatika. | I taught them a grammar lesson. |
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha leksíon Chamoru. | I taught them a Chamorro lesson. |
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha leksíon historia. | I taught them a history lesson. |
| Hu fa’nå’gue siha leksíon bíblia. | I taught them a Bible lesson. |
Now let’s do some example sentences with the rest of the verbs. We will be using the sentences from the previous section, but removing the ni:
| Hu gågao hao ayudu. | I asked you for help. |
| Un nå’i yu’ lemmai. | You gave me breadfruit. |
| Ma fa’nu’i ham liyang. | They showed us a cave. |
| In sangåni siha estoria. | We told them a story. |
| Hu tugi’i hamyo kåtta. | I wrote you a letter. |
| In fa’tinåsi hamyo kafé. | We made you some coffee. |
| Ma cho’guiyi yu’.1 | They did it for me.1 |
| Hu na’ayao hao salåppi’. | I lent you money. |
| Ha na’hanaogue yu’ paketi. | She sent me a package. |
| En na’klaruyi yu’ kåntan Chamoru. | You clarified a Chamorro song to me. |
1 Ma cho’guiyi yu’: In the usage examples I found for cho’guiyi, most of the time the object was specific. Saying something like ma cho’guiyi yu’ cho’cho’ is likely grammatical, but it might not be something that’s said in spoken Chamorro. I often found examples where an object was left off entirely, hence why this example sentence is written this way.
Special Note on “It”: In the sentences above, you can just leave off the object to make sentences like “She sent it to me” or “I lent it to you.” These sentences would look like Ha na’hanaogue yu’ or Hu na’ayao hao.
Why these verbs are tricky (and how to get them right)
Although the verbs we’ve practiced with are common, they are easy for learners to use incorrectly in Chamorro. To understand why, let’s look more closely at the word fa’nå’gue, which all the current Chamorro dictionaries will define as “teach, educate, instruct.”
The issue lies in how we use the word in English versus in Chamorro. In English, for example, it is common to say the following:
- I will teach the Chamorro language.
- She teaches math.
- I taught the music lesson.
This may lead us to think we can say things like Hu fa’nå’gue i leksion to express the thought “I taught the lesson.” But this is incorrect in Chamorro. Why?
In Chamorro, the word fa’nå’gue means to “teach someone something.” The someone is missing in our sentence and has been replaced with the something (in this case, the lesson).
It’s actually very easy to make this mistake because the Chamorro dictionaries don’t always clarify in their definitions that the word needs a someone and a something. On top of that, our English-oriented brains will try to literally translate what’s commonly said in English into Chamorro, which doesn’t always work out well.
To avoid falling into this mistake, always look for example sentences. This will show us how verbs are actually used in Chamorro, rather than leaving us to assume it can be used in ways that are equivalent to English.
Using the Indefinite Man- Prefix: If you do want to say “I taught the lesson” in Chamorro, transform the word fa’nå’gue with the indefinite man- prefix and say Mama’nå’gue yu’ ni leksion (I taught the lesson). Since we are not wanting to specify the someone we taught the lesson to, we need to put our verb in the form needed for non-specific objects.
Wrapping Up: Keep Practicing These Verbs!
And that’s it for this introduction to the most common verbs that use two objects! Just keep practicing with the verbs in this post until they feel intuitive to use in your speech and writing. This will make it easier to learn and use other transformed verbs, which we will practice with in later blog posts.
References
Chung, S. (2020). Chamorro grammar. eScholarship, University of California. https://doi.org/10.48330/E2159R
- Concealed applicatives (gågao): pg. 231-232
- Applicatives of causatives (na’hanaogue, na’klaruyi): pg. 281
Topping, D. M., & Dungca, B. C. (1980). Chamorro Reference Grammar (PALI Language Texts―Micronesia). University of Hawaii Press.
- Referential Focus: pg. 249
- Benefactive Focus: pg. 251
Lengguahi-ta 