Category: Chamorro Lessons: Beginner

Lesson 03: Describing Others in Chamorro – “The woman is tall”

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner9 Comments

Now it’s time to create more complex descriptions by describing nouns with adjectives, so we can say things like The child is tired or The woman is tall. We can also describe nouns with other nouns with sentences like The man is a teacher or The teacher is a singer. To make these types of sentences in Chamorro, we need to understand how the word order differs from English. We will also learn the article i and its accompanying vowel harmony rules, which dictate how sounds change to make our speech smoother. This post includes explanatory notes for these concepts, practice drills for vowel harmony, example sentences, Chamorro audio pronunciations, and a Quizlet Deck to help you practice. Happy studying!

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Lesson 07: How to Say “Because” in Chamorro – “I’m tired because I’m hungry”

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner3 Comments

At the beginning of our learning, we can be focused on a lot of small sentences. Up until now these are the sentences we’ve learned how to make, sentences like “I am tired”; “They are students”; “We are tired students.” Now we are going to start making our thoughts a little longer by linking these short sentences with the word “because.” So instead of many small, disconnected thoughts we can start to smooth out our speech with sentences like “I am tired because I am a student.” In this post we will learn about the word sa’ in Chamorro and how to use it. Happy studying!

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Connecting Thoughts in Chamorro With But – “I’m hungry, but I’m not thirsty.”

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: BeginnerLeave a comment

Using lao is a great way to start connecting thoughts at the beginner stage and beyond. Up until now we can say things like “I am not hungry. I am thirsty.” With lao we can start to string together our basic sentences into more complete thoughts with sentences like “I am not hungry, but I am thirsty.”

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Lesson 05: How to Say “Not” in Chamorro – “I am not hungry.”

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner7 Comments

In past lessons, we’ve focused on how to describe people and things in a positive way — like “I am hungry” or “The woman is a singer.” Now it’s time to flip that! In this lesson, you’ll learn how to say what you’re not — like “I’m not hungry” or “The woman is not a singer.”To create these sentences, we’ll learn about the Negative Marker “Ti” and how to use it to make negative statements. This post includes lesson notes, example sentences in Chamorro, audio pronunciations and a Quizlet Deck for supplementary practice. Happy studying!

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Lesson 06: How to Turn Basic Statements into Questions – From “You are hungry” to “Are you hungry?”

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner7 Comments

Ready to start asking questions in Chamoru? In this lesson, you’ll learn how to turn any simple sentence into a yes-or-no question — like changing “You are tired” into “Are you tired?”, or “They are teachers” into “Are they teachers? To make this transformation, we will be learning about the Question Word “Kao” and how it’s used in Chamorro. Happy studying!

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