Tag: Descriptive Sentences

Describing Things in Chamorro, Part 1: Noun-Noun Descriptions

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Intermediate3 Comments

When we start out in the Chamorro language, one of the first things we learn is how to describe nouns with adjectives, in phrases such as dångkulo’ na kareta (big car) or yayas na palao’an (tired woman). We learn the structure that teaches us to use the na particle, and it’s easy to start with because the word order is the same as English. But Chamorro includes different ways of making descriptions, and in this blog post we will start to learn how to describe things with nouns to say phrases such as “olive oil” or “water bottle.” This post includes Chamorro audio pronunciations of all phrases voiced by Jay Che’le. Happy studying!

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How to Say “I Am a Tired Student” in Chamorro – Adding Details When Describing Yourself and Others

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner11 Comments

This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

In this lesson, we’re going one step further in how we describe people and things in Chamorro. So far, we’ve practiced sentences like “The student is tired” — where the description and the noun are separate. Now, we’ll learn how to combine descriptions and nouns to create phrases like “tired student” or “happy child.” To do this, we’ll use a small word called “na”, which acts like a connector or linker. Once we’ve learned how to build these descriptive phrases, we’ll put them into full sentences to talk about ourselves and others — like “I am a tired student.”

This post includes lesson notes, practice drills with the Linker “na”, example sentences, and a Quizlet Deck for additional practice. Happy studying!

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Putting Your Chamorro Sentences Together with Not, But, and Because

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner10 Comments

This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

To wrap up our series on creating basic descriptive sentences in Chamorro, we’ll start practicing how to combine sentences to express longer thoughts. We’ll do this by connecting ideas with “not,” “but,” and “because” in a single thought, giving us a clearer sense of how much we can expand our basic sentences with these small but powerful words. Happy studying!

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How to Say “The Woman Is Happy” in Chamorro – Describing Others

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner14 Comments

This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

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 happy. 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, Chamorro sentences, English translations, audio pronunciations, and a Quizlet Deck for additional practice. Happy studying!

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

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Beginner6 Comments

This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

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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