Free Download: Chamorro Language Self-Study Worksheets

Recently, I’ve started creating worksheets for our practice group to help focus on specific sentence forms and word transformations in a more structured way. These worksheets are adapted from the self-study materials I designed for my own language learning, offering structure and repetition to better practice and acquire new content. In this post, you can download five of these blank self-study worksheets for free, along with one completed example to guide you on how they can be used. Happy studying!

Speech Attribution in Chamorro part 3: The Reciprocal Á- Prefix

Continuing our blog series on speech attribution in Chamorro, we will learn how the reciprocal á- prefix is used to indicate who is speaking in Chamorro stories. This prefix is used in sentences such as “The women asked each other” or “Juan and I sang to each other.” The reciprocal á- prefix is used in more than just speech attribution, but it can be helpful to learn this prefix in the context of storytelling. This post includes an introduction to the á- prefix, sentence drills in Chamorro with the audio, and English translations. Happy studying!

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When we first arrived on Saipan

This story was written by Magdelena Iguel Lieto, where she tells the story, as told to her by her elders, of how their people (the Carolinians) came to Saipan. This is part of a workbook of short stories that I found in the KPV Collection. This post includes the Chamorro text, a Chamorro audio narration by Jay Che’le, and an English translation. Happy reading! (UPDATE 9/24/2024: A note has been added at the bottom of this post about the word gupallao, which is used in this story.)

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Legend: When Taga Became Chief of Tinian

September is Chamorro and Carolinian Cultural Heritage Month in the CNMI, and so for the next month our practice group will be reading stories in honor of this celebration. This first story is about how Taga, a man known for his incredible strength, became chief of the island of Tinian. This story is from a book about Taga, which was first written down in English and then later translated into Chamorro. We found the Chamorro version, by Sylvestre Iguel, in the Pacific Languages Collection at UH Manoa when we visited in June. This post includes the Chamorro text, a Chamorro audio narration by Jay Che’le and an English translation. Happy reading!

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