Here are my lesson notes for what I consider to be beginner-level Chamorro grammar, based upon my own learning experience. At the beginner level we are focused on building vocabulary, learning foundational sentence structures, and becoming comfortable with expressing basic thoughts and questions.
In these notes I try to avoid overly technical terms and focus on how we can build our sentences, with sentence drills for practice. Each lesson has a guide to the basic sentence structures, sentence drills, and Chamorro audio recordings.
TOTAL LESSONS: 36 (Last updated: May 4, 2024)
Basic Descriptive Sentences
Learn basic rules for describing yourself and the world around you. Learn how to make basic descriptions with adjectives and nouns, make basic questions, and start learning about pronouns in Chamorro.
Pronouns – Introduction to Pronouns
Using Adjectives – “I am hungry”
Using Nouns – “I am a student”
Describing Nouns with Adjectives – “The woman is tall.”
Compound Descriptions – “I am a tired student.”
Negative Descriptions – “I am not hungry”
Basic Questions – “Are you hungry?”
Because – “I’m tired because I’m a student”
Basic Compound Sentences – Combining Sentences with Kao, Ti, or Sa’
Basic Action Sentences
Transitive Verbs
Learn basic sentence structures for simple action statements that have objects. For beginners, this is a good place to start because the basic sentence structure mirrors the sentence structure in English. In all of these lessons, we use pronouns as our subjects, to keep it simple.
Transitive Verbs – “Introduction to Transitive Verbs in Chamorro”
Past Tense – “I drank the coffee.”
Descriptive Objects – “I drank the hot coffee.”
Present Tense – “I am drinking the coffee.”
Adding Locations – “I drank the coffee at the restaurant.”
Commands – “Drink the coffee”
Future Tense – “I will drink the coffee.”
Must / Should – “I must drink the coffee.”
Can – “I can drink the coffee.”
Intransitive Verbs
Next, learn basic sentence structures for action statements that don’t have objects. In this section you will start to learn more about Chamorro verb conjugations. In all of these notes, we are only using pronouns as the subjects, to keep the focus on learning sentence structure and verb conjugations.
Intransitive Verbs – Intro to Intransitive Verbs & Affixes
Past Tense – “I stayed”
Present Tense – “I am staying”
Future Tense – “I will stay”
Commands – “Stay”
Must / Should – “I must stay”
Can – “I can stay”
Additional Topics
This final section of basic action sentences covers other topics for making basic action sentences, such as making sentences with noun subjects, expressing likes and wants, and also how to use the words this/that/that over there:
This and That – “This / that coffee”
Want – “I want coffee.”
Like – Pt. 1 “I like you.”
Like – Pt. 2 “I like coffee.”
Like – Pt. 3 “I like this / these.”
Like – Pt. 4 “What do you like?”
Noun Subjects – Pt. 1 “The woman bought the coffee.”
Noun Subjects – Pt. 2 “The woman danced”
Possessive Pronouns
In this section we will learn about possessive pronouns, how they work, and how to make basic statements about possession in Chamorro.
Possessive Pronouns – Intro to possessive pronouns
Food, Drink, and Animals – “My mango, my coffee, my dog”
General Statements with Iyo – “This is mine”
Existence
These notes cover how to make basic statements about existence with guaha, tåya’, gaige and taigue.
There is / There is no – Guaha / Tåya’
Have / Not Have – Guaha / Tåya’ with possession
Present / Absent – Gaige / Taigue
A Lot / A Little – Meggai / Didide’
Question Words
Each lesson in this section will be an introduction to the major question words in Chamorro. We will learn how to express basic questions in Chamorro and how to pair these question words with the sentences we’ve already learned.
What – Håfa
Who – Håyi
Where – Månu Nai / Mångge
When – Ngai’an
Which – Månu
How Much / Many – Kuanto
Why – Håfa na
How – Taimanu
Other Beginner Topics
Numbers and Counting – Pt. 1 Modern Numbers (Spanish)
Numbers and Counting – Pt. 2 Ancient Numbers (Chamorro)
Calendar – Pt. 1 Calendar (from Spanish)
Calendar – Pt. 2 Calendar (Indigenous)
Time – Telling Time on a Clock
Time – Time of Day
Directions – Pt. 1 Guini, Guenao, Guihi
Directions – Pt. 2 Mågi, Guatu
Lengguahi-ta 