Author: Schyuler Lujan

Learning to speak, read and write Chamorro while creating digital materials to support our worldwide learning community.

How to Say “I Like You” in Chamorro – Expressing Likes to Someone

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner6 Comments

This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

In this lesson, you begin learning how to talk about likes and dislikes in Chamorro. We start with simple sentences about people, such as “I like you,” “She doesn’t like you,” or “Juan likes you.” You’ll practice using a common Chamorro word for expressing likes in Chamorro and learn how to build natural sentences to talk about who likes whom. This is the first lesson in a beginner-friendly series on expressing likes and dislikes, with more to come. Happy studying!

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Legend: The Story of the Coconut

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Legends, Chamorro StoriesLeave a comment

March is Mes Chamoru on Guam, so Biba Mes Chamoru! What do you all have planned for celebrating Chamorro culture and language this March? On this blog, I’m hoping to share some new Chamorro stories, in addition to the weekly stories I post here for our Saturday practice group. For me, this month is all about trying to spark our imaginations in the Chamorro language 🙂

To get us started for Mes Chamoru, here is the Legend of the Coconut, which we will be reading and translating in our morning practice group this Saturday. This post includes the Chamorro text, Chamorro audio narration by Jay Che’le, an English translation, and two Quizlet flashcard decks – one for learning affixed words, and another to learn the phrase chunks. Happy reading!

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Håfa by Daniel De Leon Guerrero – Chamorro Lyrics and English Translation

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro SongsLeave a comment

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!

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How To Introduce Yourself in Chamorro: 70 Phrases to Get Started

On By Schyuler LujanIn Phrase ListsLeave a comment

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

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro StoriesLeave a comment

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!

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