Chamorro Listening Comprehension Activity: Coconut Crab Soup, Part 1

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro VoicesLeave a comment

Lately Jay has been testing out a different kind of learning activity with our practice group, focused on strengthening listening comprehension of spoken Chamorro. He listens to online clips of Chamorro speakers and creates comprehension questions to see how much we actually catch. These types of exercises are a great way to strengthen real-time listening comprehension of Chamorro.

This post includes the first set of Jay’s listening comprehension exercises for a clip from the video “Kadon Ayuyu” by Stel Star Productions, which can be found on YouTube. The video does include English subtitles, so make sure to hide the subtitles (or don’t look at them!) to get the most out of this exercise. I’ve included the comprehension questions with sample answers, in Chamorro first followed by English translations. The questions are formatted as “click-to-reveal” – just click the question to reveal a sample answer. Do your best to give your answers in Chamorro, in your own words. Happy listening!

PS: If you want to listen to the video clip again, refresh the whole page to reset the time stamps (4:24 – 8:23).

Image Credit: By Drew Avery – originally posted to Flickr as Coconut Crab {Birgus latro}#2, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9861915

Continue reading “Chamorro Listening Comprehension Activity: Coconut Crab Soup, Part 1” →

Churisus Påkpak by Chilang Delgado – Chamorro Lyrics and English Translation

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro SongsLeave a comment

Two Saturdays ago our evening practice group listened to and transcribed Churisus Påkpak by Chilang Delgado. On the surface, the song appears to be about churisus påkpak, a sausage that is common in Chamorro kitchens and gets its name from the fact that it bursts open when cooked (hence the word påkpak which means “explode” or “pop”). But this is a song full of innuendo, and the churisus påkpak is just imagery to represent something else. It wasn’t until we reached the final lyric that it suddenly clicked for the group what the song is actually talking about. (Jay only had us listen to the audio, as the music video makes the underlying meaning obvious).

This post includes the music video, Chamorro lyrics, an English translation, language notes and a cultural context note for the song Churisus Påkpak by Chilang Delgado. Happy listening!

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How to Say “How” in Chamorro

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner1 Comment

This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

In this lesson, we’ll explore different ways to ask how something is done in Chamorro. These are the kinds of questions we use when we’re curious about a process — whether we’re asking How was the soup made? or How does one fish? Chamorro uses the word taimanu (“how”) in several patterns, and we’ll learn some of the most common ones that are easy for beginners to apply. We’ll start with questions about actions done to something, like making rope or building a shelter. Then we’ll shift to questions about activities, such as swimming, dancing, or running on the sand. Each pattern builds on the last, helping you expand the core patterns step-by-step.

As always, this lesson includes example sentences, English translations, and audio narrations by Jay Che’le to guide your learning. Happy studying!

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Nihi Fan Che’lu by Walter Manglona – Chamorro Lyrics and English Translation

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro SongsLeave a comment

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

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HITA i Lengguahi-ta! A Chamorro Language Workshop

On By Schyuler LujanIn WorkshopsLeave a comment

This morning, Jay and I facilitated a language workshop for this year’s Mes CHamoru celebration with MÅGI (Marianas Alliance for Growth of Islanders) here in Oregon. It was such an honor to be part of the event and to offer this workshop to our local community. We were excited — and honestly a little nervous — since it was our first time teaching a workshop like this. But it went well, and we’re excited for more opportunities to offer language classes and workshops.

We designed this workshop as a “foundation builder” for beginners, starting with pronunciation, sounds, and word shape. From there, we jumped right into a simple fill‑in‑the‑blank introduction before moving into vocabulary and basic sentence building.

The sentence building portion centered around one core pattern: “_______ yu’.” Using that as our anchor, we slowly expanded into different thoughts by introducing new vocabulary and the small connecting words needed for everyday dialogue. Activities alternated between learning new words, language pattern exercises and applying concepts in simple dialogues. By the end, we had moved from short sentences like Maguf yu’ to fuller thoughts like Ti ñalang yu’ sa’ chumochu yu’ pån yan magof yu’. One of the participants even read and translated that final sentence — and she did wonderfully. Jay and I left the celebration with our hearts full, and we will probably write a more full reflection of the workshop in a different post.

For anyone who would like to access our presentation slides and accompanying booklet, they are linked below:

Link to Workshop Presentation:

HITA i Lengguahi-ta! A Chamorro Language Workshop

Link to Printable Booklet:

Booklet – HITA i Lengguahita (FINAL)Download

Un dångkulu na si Yu’us Ma’åsi to everyone who attended our workshop – we so appreciate your time and your graciousness with us. And dångkulu na kulu to everyone at MÅGI (and particularly Bertina!) who made this celebration happen.