Online Resources for the Chamorro Language

This page gathers a variety of online resources to support your Chamorro learning. Some offer structured lessons, while others feature content from native or highly fluent speakers. Together, they give you different ways to explore the language and hear it used in real contexts.

Contents

  1. Online Practice Groups
  2. Individual & Small Group Tutoring
  3. Digital Instructional Resources
  4. Chamorro Textbooks
  5. Chamorro Dictionaries
  6. Chamorro Stories & Books
  7. Chamorro Religious Texts
  8. Other Written Content
  9. Chamorro Music Resources
  10. Audio of Native Speakers

Online Practice Groups

Jay and I facilitate free, community Chamorro language practice groups on Zoom every week. Details about each group are shown below. Our sessions are conducted mostly in Chamorro, and learners of all levels are welcome to join. If you are interested in joining one or both groups, please fill out our practice group contact form.

Praktikan Ogga’an – Read Chamorro Stories (90 minute session)

  • This group meets Saturday mornings at 9:00 AM Pacific Time (Sundays 2:00 AM CHst) on Zoom. Together, we read and translate Chamorro stories, helping participants learn vocabulary and sentence patterns through context.

    Praktikan Pupuengi – Listen to Chamorro Music (90 – 120 minute session)

    • This group meets every Saturday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Time (Sundays 11:00 AM CHst) on Zoom. Together, we listen to and transcribe Chamorro songs to strengthen listening skills.

    Individual & Small Group Tutoring

    Private Chamorro Language Instruction – Click for Details
    If you are interested in paying for individual Chamorro language instruction, Jesus Lujan offers sessions virtually and in-person for adult language learners. You can sign up for individual instruction, or you can sign up as a group and receive a group discount.

    Digital Instructional Resources

    @dihan.dabit
    You can find my friend Dabit Taitingfong on Instagram, where he teaches bite-sized Chamorro language lessons in the Chamorro language. Great for the busy learner who is on-the-go.

    LearningChamoru.com
    This a centralized online learning platform for Chamoru with audio drills and dialogues in Chamoru. It also includes a few lessons for structured learning.

    Eyak Nåya – Chamorro Language Learning Series by Ray Barcinas
    A new YouTube channel to learn the Chamorro language from Ray Barcinas, who is a native speaker from Rota. He also publishes his fantasy fiction series called Faneyåkan Lina’la’ to this channel.

    The Chamorro Language
    This blog is a great all-in-one resource for getting started with simple phrases, word lists and grammar concepts.

    Chamorro Textbooks

    Spoken Chamorro by Donald Topping and Pedro Ogo
    Spoken Chamorro is an older book, but it has hundreds of sentence drills, which are great for learning sentence structure and grammar concepts. In all honesty, this book was really challenging for me to use as a beginner, second-language learner because different concepts are mixed together in the sentence drills, making it difficult to identify patterns. But it’s still great for getting example sentences, if you know the words you want to practice. Access a free, online scanned PDF of the first edition via the KPV collection.

    Chamorro Reference Grammar by Donald Topping and Bernadita Dungca
    I also highly recommend owning this book, although it’s also better used as a reference book for people who have at least a solid, beginner level understanding in the language. It is so helpful for understanding different word forms, grammar topics and also word order. Access a free, online scanned PDF of this book via Scribd.

    Chamorro-English Phrase Book by Påle’ Roman de Vera
    This is a collection of vocabulary lists and phrase lists (organized topically) by Påle’ Roman de Vera. It’s from 1932, but it’s still the best and most easily accessible phrasebook available today for Chamorro. Just note that some native speakers may consider his language old-fashioned.

    Chamorro Grammar by Dr. Sandra Chung
    This book is available online for free as a PDF. At about 750 pages, it’s pretty comprehensive but also pretty technical from a linguistic perspective. It’s great to have for reference, and there are plenty of sentence examples from natural spoken Chamorro. Overall, this book becomes increasingly useful as you progress in the language, and you can search for words to find example sentences. If the above link does not work, you can also access the book for free at this link.

    Finu’ Chamorro for Beginners by Dr. Faye Untalan
    This workbook is designed to provide Chamorro language teachers with a curriculum for classroom use. Therefore, this book is not designed to support learners outside of traditional classroom settings, and it also lacks audio pronunciations and answer keys. Because of this, it may be a challenging resource for beginner, self-study learners. However, it’s great for reference and can also be a good resource for homeschool or community groups who want to facilitate their own Chamorro classes or study groups, as long as the facilitator already knows Chamorro.

    Chamorro Dictionaries

    Revised and Updated Chamorro English Dictionary
    This is a project out of the CNMI to update the Chamorro-English dictionary. Updates include multiple example sentences with every word, accurate part-of-speech tagging, and updated orthography. This is my go-to Chamorro dictionary.

    diksionåriu.com
    This is an online version of The Official Chamorro English Dictionary that was published in 2009. They have a downloadable .csv file of all their entries, which is great for offline access.

    Diccionario Chamorro-Castellano
    This dictionary is by Påle’ Roman de Vera, and is a Chamorro-Spanish dictionary, and is a critical resource because it includes many older words and older definitions of words. Use Google Lens on your phone to easily translate the Spanish.

    Chamorro-English Dictionary by Topping, Ogo and Dungca
    This is the dictionary that most people start out with. Even with all the free dictionaries online, this is still great to have, especially with the really useful word classifications.

    Chamorro Dictionary
    This is an online Chamorro-English dictionary that is on the chamoru.info website.

    Dictionary and Grammar of the Chamorro Language of the Island of Guam
    This is the dictionary by Edward von Pressig, available for free download from The Internet Archive.

    Chamorro to English Kindle Dictionary
    Here is a link to download the Chamorro – English dictionary I formatted for the Kindle. It has about 9k – 10k words. It’s far from complete, but it can be helpful for looking up some words when you are reading Chamorro texts on your Kindle. This folder also includes the dictionary in an Excel format.

    Chamoru Morphological Analysis
    This is definitely a timesaver for any Chamoru language learner. You enter a word into the tool, and it tries to identify the root word and all the transformations applied to it. This is a great tool for when you come across words that you don’t recognize or find in the dictionary, because it’s likely a transformed version of a root word. However, not all transformations are captured in this tool, so it won’t always be able to help you. And some learners have expressed that they find the output confusing to interpret.

    Chamorro Stories & Books

    KPV Collection
    This website contains a huge collection of written resources about the Marianas available for download, including many children’s books written entirely in Chamorro.

    University of Hawaii at Mānoa – PALM and Pacific Languages Collection
    University of Hawaii at Mānoa has an open-access collection of materials through their Pacific Area Language Materials (PALM) collection, which includes about 50 children’s books written in Chamorro available for download. If you physically visit the library, you can also request a guest account to view and scan the physical items in their Pacific Languages Collection (located on the 5th floor of the Hamilton Library).

    University of Guam Digital Archives and Exhibitions
    This is a digital repository from the University of Guam that includes hundreds of children’s books written in Chamorro, under the YMLG CHamoru Language Collection . All books are available for free download and use for educational purposes.

    Memories and Music: The Japanese Era on Rota
    This is a collection of interviews done in Chamorro with elders from the island of Rota, recounting their WWII experiences. It also includes a selection of Kåntan Chamorrita lyrics at the back of the book. The interviews have the Chamorro text and English translations, making this a great learner resource. You can download a free PDF of this book from the CNMI Humanities Council.

    Chamorro Religious Texts

    There are several religious texts that are written in Chamorro. They are some of the longest written Chamorro we have today and are critical resources for learning more advanced Chamorro and older speech forms. Here are links to the texts available freely online:

    Books by Påle Roman de Vera
    Påle’ Roman de Vera has translated many religious books into Chamorro. These books are great for exposure to advanced grammar in the Chamorro language. You can access the books online, for free through the Capuchin Digital Library at the links below:

    Sunday Readings in Chamorro
    This is the North Star church bulletin out of the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa, and they publish the Sunday readings in Chamorro every week. This is a great resource for people who are wanting more texts from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) written in Chamorro.

    The Order of the Mass in Chamorro
    This is the order of the mass in the Chamorro language, with an English translation, found on the website for the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Santa Rita, Guam.

    1908 Chamorro Bible
    This is a 1908 Chamorro translation of the 4 gospels and all the psalms, available for download. This uses an older spelling system which can initially make it challenging to read, but try to read everything out loud and listen to the available audio recordings on their website.

    Baháʼí Prayers in Chamorro
    Collection of prayers from the Baháʼí Faith in Chamorro, available in a nicely formatted 62-page PDF.

    Book of Mormon in Chamorro
    This is selections of the Book of Mormon translated into Chamorro. You can access this online, or even request a physical book to be mailed to you.

    Chamoru Rosary Prayers
    A collection of prayers in Chamorro. I find this page helpful because it breaks down the different parts of the prayers from Chamorro into English.

    Other Written Content

    Paleric Blog
    This blog is an incredible resource from Påle’ Eric Forbes which includes many posts about Chamorro culture, history and language. He also writes many delightful stories in Chamorro, with English translations! And sometimes he includes audio narrations of himself reading the stories. There are also some grammar lessons, deep-dives on individual words and song lyric posts.

    News Articles by Peter Onedera
    Peter Onedera writes news articles in Chamoru for the Pacific Daily News. What makes these articles an especially helpful resource is that he includes the English translation after the Chamoru. You can download a selection of these articles formatted for the Kindle from my dropbox.

    ChamoruBoy
    This is a blog written entirely in Chamorro, which is good reading comprehension practice if you are farther along in your learning.

    Chamorro Music Resources

    YouTube Chamorro Music Playlists
    There is a wealth of Chamorro music available online to listen to. If you just search for “Chamorro Music” you are sure to get some songs. But to get you started, here are links to some playlists YouTube channels that focus on Chamorro music:

    Chamorro Music Playlists

    Chamorro Music YouTube Channels

    Kamalen Music
    A fantastic free resource of sheet music for Chamoru hymns. For those of you who are musically inclined, this can be a great way to use music for learning Chamoru. And for some audio to go with this sheet music, check out the audio recordings from the Lepblon Kånta by the Nobena Ladies on SoundCloud.

    Guitar Chords for Chamorro Music
    This is a collection of guitar chords for some popular Chamorro songs, transcribed by user MalatiBalati on ultimate-guitar.com and perfect for those who are musically inclined.

    Audio of Native Speakers

    Marianas Agupa Talkshow
    This is a talkshow done in Chamoru, with episodes that are around 2 hours long. A fantastic resource for getting more listening comprehension practice and audio immersion.

    Marianas Agupa: Cultural Talk Show
    The Marianas Agupa Talk Show did a series of interviews, in Chamorro, with different cultural practitioners. This is an amazing talkshow series for learning more about Chamorro history and culture from our elders.

    Oral History Project: CNMI Archives
    Here’s an archive of recordings from an oral history project done in the CNMI. This is an amazing resource for listening to native speakers, and some of the recordings also include transcripts in Chamorro, or both Chamorro and the English translation.

    Chachalåni Project
    A language project to document the Chamorro language as it is spoken on Guam. This website includes audio clips of interviews with speakers and interview transcriptions.

    Ekungok i Estoriå-ta
    A collection of narratives and songs in Chamorro about historical sites on Guåhan. Each narrative as a PDF transcript and song lyrics. Great for listening comprehension practice, especially for beginners.

    Chamorro Bible
    This includes audio files of portions of the Bible read in Chamoru, which are great for listening practice. Also includes text available for download. But note that these files are in the older spelling orthography.

    Paleric Youtube Channel
    This is such a fantastic Youtube channel, with hundreds of videos that have Chamoru songs (with the lyrics!), videos of Påle’ Eric reading or speaking Chamoru, and then conversations with native speakers. Some of the videos with native speakers even have the transcripts in Chamoru! I love using this channel for training my ear in the language.

    KUAM: Chamoru News Update
    Here is a link to a playlist with news segments from KUAM spoken entirely in Chamoru. Segments are a few minutes each, and there are at least two hundred videos. So it’s great for listening practice with a ton of variety.

    Jesus Film in Chamorro
    This is the Jesus Film, dubbed in Chamorro. It’s 2 hours long, so it’s really helpful for listening practice. You can also download the entire film, which is great for listening or watching on the go if you don’t have an internet connection.

    Isla 63 Radio Station
    Isla 63 is a broadcast radio station in Hagåtña, Guam, providing Chamorro music and Talk radio shows. Follow this link to listen live. You can also find this radio station on apps such as TuneIn

    CHamoru Devotions
    A YouTube channel dedicated to the Holy Rosary in Chamoru, which includes text with the audio.

    Finohaya GCC Channel
    A channel with Chamorro culture educational videos in Fino Håya’. Videos include subtitles in English and Chamorro.

    Siñora Mesa YouTube Channel
    This channel is fabulous for learners – especially beginners – who need to practice their listening. Siñora Mesa speaks in Chamoru, and speaks slowly and clearly which is helpful for learning. Her content is also very fun and enjoyable.

    Chamoru Vlog: Siñot Cody Lizama
    This is a vlog entirely in Chamoru! One thing I really like about this vlog is that there are subtitles given in Chamoru, which is helpful for training the ear in the language.

    Audiobooks from UOG Press
    You can find audio files of several children’s books and the entire Chamoru text of Lihenden Chamoru on the Soundcloud page for UOG Press.

    Chamoru Vlog: Peter Santos
    Another vlog entirely in Chamoru! This one does not include Chamoru subtitles, but the vlogging style includes a lot of visual cues which really helps strengthen my listening skills.

    Hongga Mo’na Project
    In this oral history project, elders were interviewed in Chamoru to share their experiences during the Japanese Occupation of World War II. The main website is down, but the interviews are still available on YouTube. I also have some of the interview transcripts on my downloads page. Additionally, I have these transcripts formatted for the Kindle, available from my dropbox.