I was recently reminded of this song when Jay and I were walking into the city a few days ago. We often like to have a good walking song, which manifests in either improvising Chamorro lyrics to random tunes (Jay is great at this and I am terrible, haha) or just singing our favorite Chamorro songs. Last week we sang this song, which is fun for walking because it’s sung in a call-and-response style, framing a conversation between two friends trying to decide what to do next. Admittedly, one of the friends in this song seems like a pain, but that’s also what makes the song so fun. Our Saturday evening group actually transcribed this one back in 2024, so it has been sitting deep in our Chamorro music backlog. I’m glad I finally got around to posting it 🙂

So here are Chamorro lyrics and an English translation (with plenty of notes!) for the song Nihi Fan Che’lu by Walter Manglona. Happy listening!

Nihi fan che’lu. / Para amånu hit?	Let’s go (please) bro. / Where are we going?
Ta egga’ movie. / Månu guatu?	We’ll watch a movie. / Where to?
Gi as Matsumoto. / Håfa na movie?	At Matsumoto’s. / What movie?
Yudo’ yan karate’. / Nangga fan che’lu	Judo and karate. / Wait (please) bro.
Håfa ta’lu?1 / Sa’ tåya salappe’-hu	What now? / Because I don’t have any money
Kulan ti macho’cho’cho’ hao nai na taotao	It’s as though you aren’t a working person
Maolek ha’ lokkue sa’ i kareta, tåya gas-ña	It’s alright because the car also doesn’t have any gas

Ai amigu-hu. / Håfa ta’lu?	Oh my friend. / What now?
Nihi para i lånchu. / Para håfa?	Let’s go to the ranch. / What for?
Ta na’boka i babui. / Mås ki nunka yu’2	We’ll feed the pig. / Not me.
Na klåsen amigu hao? / Huchom pachot-mu!	What kind of friend are you? / Shut your mouth!
Nangga ya tarehå-mu.3 / Para ke’ yu’4	Wait until it’s your turn. / I couldn’t care less.
Maolekña un5 nana’lu tåtte’ sapatos-hu	You’d better return my shoes
Achokka’ un yineri6 guatu para si nanå-mu	Even though you’ll be wearing slippers over to your mother’s (house)

Båsta yu mafa’ga’ga’7 esta yu o’osson	Stop taking advantage of me, I’m getting tired of it already
Hågu ha sumakke’ i pachingko’ gi gima	You are the one who stole the spear gun from the house
(Mandagi hao!)	(You lie!)
Mungnga yu nai madagi, hu li’e hao nai gi paingi8	Don’t lie to me, I saw you last night
Achokka’ ti un bira hao nai tåtte mågi guini, ti bai manman un råtu9	Even if you never came back here again, I wouldn’t give it a second thought

Nihi fan che’lu. / Para amånu hit?	Let’s go (please) bro. / Where are we going?
Ta é’alileng.10 / Månu guatu?	We’ll hunt for sea snails. / Where to?
Gi hilo’ i máma’ti. / Para håfa?	On the reef. / What for?
Para cheså-ta11. / Kao enao ha’?	For our snack. / Is that all?
Håfa malago’-mu? / Maseha guihan.	What do you want? / At least some fish.
Tå’chong påpa’ nai ya un konne’ maisa hao	Then sit down and you’ll catch it for yourself
Båsta nai mafa’ga’ga’ yu, che’lu-hu.	Stop taking advantage of me, bro.

Ai amigu-hu. / Håfa ta’lu?	Oh my friend. / What now?
Nihi para i naitklub. / Para håfa?	Let’s go to the nightclub. / What for?
Ta egga’ baila. / Mås ki nunka yu’.	We’ll watch dancers. / Not me.
Båsta mama’baba’.12 / Nangga nåya.	Stop fooling around. / Wait a moment.
Månggi asaguå-mu? / (Hu)månao bumoka.13	Where is your spouse? / She went to eat.
Nihi ta na’chaddek sinó ta toka	Let’s make it fast, or else we’ll get in trouble
Di un magacha’ sa’ humihita na dos.	for you getting caught that we are together

Båsta yu mafa’ga’ga’ esta yu o’osson	Stop taking advantage of me, I’m getting tired of it already
Hågu ha sumakke’ i pachingko’ gi gima	You are the one who stole the spear gun from the house
(Mandagi hao!)	(You lie!)
Mungnga yu nai madagi, hu li’e hao nai gi paingi	Don’t lie to me, I saw you last night
Achokka’ ti un bira hao nai tåtte mågi guini, ti bai manman un råtu	Even if you never came back here again, I wouldn’t give it a second thought

Nihi fan che’lu. / Para månu hit?	Let’s go (please) bro. / Where are we going?
Ta egga’ movie. / Månu guatu?	We’ll watch a movie. / Where to?
Gi as Matsumoto. / Håfa na movie?	At Matsumoto’s. / What movie?
Yudo’ yan karate’. / Nangga fan che’lu	Judo and karate. / Wait (please) bro.
Håfa ta’lu? / Sa’ tåya salappe’-hu	What now? / Because I don’t have any money
Kulan ti macho’cho’cho’ hao nai na taotao	It’s as though you aren’t a working person
Maolek ha’ lokkue sa’ i kareta, tåya gas-ña	It’s alright because the car also doesn’t have any gas
Maolek ha’ lokkue sa’ i kareta, tåya gas-ña	It’s alright because the car also doesn’t have any gas
Maolek ha’ lokkue sa’ i kareta, tåya gas-ña	It’s alright because the car also doesn’t have any gas

(Ey Walt, guahu sumakke’ i pachingko!14)

Hey Walt, I am the one who stole the spear gun!

Song transcription developed collaboratively by the Praktikan Pupuengi Chamorro language practice group, led by Jay Che’le on February 3, 2024. English translation and notes by Schyuler Lujan, edited by Jay Che’le.

Notes

1. Håfa ta’lu?: This phrase uses the words håfa (“what”) and ta’lu (“again”), but in English we’d say “What now?” or even “What next?” ↩︎
2. Mås ki nungka yu’: This should be understood as an entire phrase, which means “not me”. It actually comes from a Spanish phrase, which you can read more about in this blog post from Påle’ Eric Forbes: https://paleric.blogspot.com/2011/03/kantan-chamorrita-i-aguayente.html ↩︎
3. Nangga ya tarehå-mu: The word tareha means “chore” or “assignment”, but in colloquial speech you’ll hear it used in this way, to indicate someone’s turn. You’ll hear this particular usage during card games or anything with a rotation of activity. In our Praktikan Pupuengi group, Jay likes to say Tarehå-mu next (“Your turn next”) when calling on the next person to transcribe lyrics. In this particular lyric, the inclusion of the word ya actually introduces a subtle nuance, as the lyric is not literally telling his friend to wait for his turn to feed the pig. Instead, it’s in a broader sense of “Just wait — your turn will come when you’re the one who needs help on your ranch.” And the friend immediately replies with indifference by saying, “I couldn’t care less”. ↩︎
4. Para ke’ yu’: This phrase can be translated as “I don’t care” or “I couldn’t care less”. You can find an entry for this phrase in the Revised and Updated Chamorro-English dictionary: https://natibunmarianas.org/p/. In other contexts, this phrase can also be understood as, “Why should this matter to me?”, but with a preconceived notion that it doesn’t matter at all. In essence, when we ask “Para ke’ yu’?”, it’s more of a rhetorical question. ↩︎
5. Maolekña un: We could literally translate the maolekña as “better”, but in this context we can understand it as “you’d better [do this action]”. ↩︎
6. Yineri: The root word here is yori’, which means “slippers”, which we commonly associate with flip-flops or other casual, slip-on footwear. This word has been transformed with the IN Infix, to put it into the form for talking about wearing yori. Instead of saying Hu u’usa i yeri (“I am using the slippers”), the Chamorro language allows us to say things like Yineyeri yu’ (“I am wearing slippers.”) — essentially turning the word yori’ (a noun) into a verb that means “wearing yori”. We can even understand that phrase to literally mean “I am yori’d“. ↩︎
7. mafa’ga’ga‘: This means “was treated like a fool, made fun of, or tricked”, “was insulted” or “was treated like an animal”. This word comes from gå’ga’, which means “animal”. The fa’- prefix is attached to create fa’ga’ga’ which means “to treat like an animal”, which in English we’d understand as treating someone inhumanely. In the song’s context, it would be clearer to understand the lyric a little less formally with phrases like “Stop jerking me around” or “Stop taking advantage of me”. Basically, he’s getting sick of dealing with his friend’s antics. He’s over it already. ↩︎
8. gi paingi: This is a phrase that means “last night”. ↩︎
9. ti bai manman un råtu: We can literally translate this phrase as “I will not be perplexed for a moment”, but this doesn’t capture the exact feeling in English. Instead, we’d say something like “I wouldn’t give it a second thought”. While the word manman does mean “shocked, perplexed”, it can also have a strong connotation of being unable to figure something out. So in this lyric, he’s saying that he wouldn’t be left wondering at his friend’s absence if he stopped coming around, and he wouldn’t go seek him out. (Probably because this friend’s antics are a pain in the butt to deal with!) ↩︎
10. é’alileng: This means “to hunt for sea snails”. The root word is alileng, which is a type of sea snail that lives inside of a cone-shaped sea shell. The prefix é- which means “to hunt for, to look for” has been attached to the front of the word to create a new word, “to hunt for alileng“. There are actually a few different types of alileng, and one that many may be familiar with has a reddish-pink pattern. The scientific name for this sea snail is Rochia nilotica and is known colloquially in English as “top shell” or “commercial top shell”. ↩︎
11. cheså-ta: The root word is cheså, which is a snack, but in the specific context of food as an accompaniment when people are drinking, or the samples of food that are snacked on when people are barbequing. ↩︎
12. mama’baba: In this context, this word means “to fool around, goof around” or even “to misbehave, be bad”. The word comes from båba, which means “bad”. ↩︎
13. We couldn’t tell if he is saying bumoka or pumokkat. ↩︎
14. Pachingko: You may find two entries in the dictionary for this word, one that means “spear gun for fishing” and another that means “gambling machine”. In this context, the lyric is referring to the spear gun.
    
    As a funny aside, Jay and I believed that the lyric referred to the gambling machine until our friend Jorell translated it as ‘spear gun’. The spear gun makes way more sense. But the fact that we can so easily imagine someone owning their own personal pachingko machine — and a friend eventually showing up, loading it onto their pickup, and driving off with it — probably says something about our experience of Chamorros. It also calls to mind that one time some people made off with the Mangilao Donni’ statue (it was later found in Yigo). Ai i taotao-ta! ↩︎

References

__. 2024. _Revised and Updated Chamorro-English Dictionary. Inetnun Kutturan Natibun Marianas/ Kkoor Aramasal Marianas (IKNM/KAM). https://natibunmarianas.org/chamorro-dictionary/.

Forbes, Eric. 2011. “KÅNTAN CHAMORRITA : I AGUAYENTE.” Paleric (blog). March 21, 2011. Accessed March 31, 2026. https://paleric.blogspot.com/2011/03/kantan-chamorrita-i-aguayente.html.