Online Resources for Learning Chamoru

Here is a list of all the online resources I’ve found for supporting my language learning. These are aimed at supporting those of us who are primarily using self-study methods, so many of these links are to content in the Chamorro language.

If you notice broken links or that sites or videos are unavailable, please let me know and I will update this page accordingly.

Online Instruction

Fino’ CHamoru På’go – Online Language Immersion Practice Group
These are free, weekly online Chamoru language immersion sessions on Zoom that are offered by a Chamorro language teacher based on Guam. The current session is about to start on August 12th, 2023 (stateside). To be admitted to the group, you must follow the instructor’s instagram page and send a direct message asking to be added to the group. This is to help the instructor monitor the group, because we had issues with Zoom bombing last year. You can find the instagram page here: https://www.instagram.com/finochamorupagu/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ

LearningChamoru.com
This a centralized online learning platform for Chamoru. It contains plenty of audio drills and dialogues in Chamoru and a dictionary where some of the words have audio. Finally, it also has a lessons section if you are seeking more guided structure to your learning.

Eyak Nåya – Chamorro Language Learning Series by Ray Barcinas
This is a new YouTube channel where we can learn the Chamorro language from Ray Barcinas, who is a Chamorro language teacher on Guam and a native speaker from Rota. He includes Chamorro video lessons and an audiobook series (all in Chamorro, with Chamorro text) called “Faneyåkan Lina’la’).

@dihan.dabit
You can find my friend Dabit Taitingfong on Instagram, where he teaches bite-sized Chamorro language lessons in the Chamorro language. His videos are awesome because he includes subtitles and his lessons are always clear and easy to follow. A friend of mine says they like to listen to these lessons during their daily commute! So they are also great for the busy learner on-the-go.

Saturday Chamorro Language Practice Groups on Zoom
My friends and I gather together every Saturday at 9am Pacific Time and 6pm Pacific Time to practice the Chamorro language online via Zoom. I facilitate the 9am group, where we read a story in Chamorro and then translate it. Jay facilitates the 6pm group where we listen to a Chamorro song, write down the lyrics, and translate them. Both groups are Chamorro-first spaces, meaning we prioritize only speaking in Chamorro as much as possible. If you are interested in joining, either email me via the Contact page, or send me a message on Instagram and I can add you to our WhatsApp group.

Online Learning Resources

The Chamorro Language
As a beginner in Chamoru, this is my favorite blog resource. There are posts that have word lists by categories, Chamoru phrases, plenty of example sentences, and grammar lessons. And there’s an online dictionary! It’s a great all-in-one resource.

Paleric
This blog is an incredible resource from Påle’ Eric Forbes which includes many posts about Chamoru history and language. I’ve barely scratched the surface with it, but I’ve found so many helpful posts about grammar and specific words.

ChamoruBoy
This is a blog written entirely in Chamoru, which is a great resource for practicing reading comprehension if you are farther along in your language learning.

Chamorro Dictionaries

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

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

Revised and Updated Chamorro English Dictionary
This is a project out of the CNMI to update the Chamorro-English dictionary. It is still a work in progress, but they are updating it periodically and each entry includes more enhanced definitions with example sentences. I was even able to find words here that I could not find in other dictionaries!

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.

Diccionario Chamorro-Castellano
This dictionary is by Påle’ Roman de Vera, and is a Chamorro-Spanish dictionary. However, it is incredible useful as it has plenty of words that I am unable to find in any of the other dictionaries. Just use Google Lens on your phone to quickly translate the Spanish. This version was scanned and uploaded by the Capuchins in Spain, but you can download a copy for yourself.

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 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 root words. 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 identifies its root word and all the transformations applied to it. Great 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.

Instructional Books

Spoken Chamorro by Donald Topping and Pedro Ogo
Spoken Chamorro is an older book, but still the main text resource (that I could find) for learning Chamorro. Honestly, as a learner starting at level 0, I found this textbook difficult to use. But once I had a solid, beginner level understanding I found this book invaluable as reference. There are hundreds of sentence drills, which are great for learning sentence structure and grammar concepts. A downside I found is that some topics seem to be mixed together, and as a beginner it was difficult to understand the language patterns (i.e.: mixing sentence drills where some verbs took the UM infix and others took the MAN- prefix). Regardless of where you are at in your learning, I do recommend getting this book. You can also find an online scanned PDF of an older version of this book 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. I wouldn’t try to use this book as your primary means of learning Chamoru, but it’s incredibly useful as you progress in the language.

Chamorro-English Phrase Book
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 phrasebook available today for Chamorro.

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 I think it becomes increasingly useful as you progress in the language. If the above link does not work, you can also access the book here.

Finu’ Chamorro for Beginners by Dr. Faye Untalan
This workbook is designed to provide teachers of the Chamorro language with a curriculum to teach learners who are absolute beginners. This means that this textbook is not designed to support learners outside of traditional classroom settings, and it lacks audio and answer keys. But it is still a good addition to your Chamorro language library since we have so few modern, instructional books available. It can be a good resource for homeschooling or community groups who want to facilitate their own classes or practice groups, but you will need a teacher who already knows the language.

Chamorro Texts

These are links to texts written in Chamorro that don’t have any audio recordings.

Stories

KPV Collection
This website contains a huge collection of written resources, including many stories, textbooks, and short books written entirely in Chamorro. Most of these books do not have English translations, so if you are a beginner you will need someone to help you.

Chamoru Children’s Books – University of Hawaii at Manoa
University of Hawaii at Manoa has an open-access collection of materials, which includes about 40-50 children’s books and textbooks written in Chamorro. You can also find some of these files on my downloads page.

Religious Texts

Istoria Sagrada
This is a Chamorro translation, edited by Påle’ Roman de Vera, of the “Sacred History” which is a narrative retelling of all the major stories of the Bible. This book is several hundred pages long and can be grammar-heavy, so it’s better for more advanced learners.

Book of Mormon in Chamorro
This is selections of the Book of Mormon translated into Chamorro.

Sermons in Chamoru by Bishop Tomas Camacho
Collection of sermons written entirely in Chamoru, from Most Reverend Bishop Tomas Camacho in Saipan. Definitely check these out if you want reading practice at the intermediate and advanced level.

Baháʼí Prayers in Chamorro
Collection of prayers from the Baháʼí Faith in Chamorro.

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.

News Articles

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.

Music Resources

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.

Audio Resources

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

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.

Ekungok i Estoriå-ta
This includes songs and written text about historical sites on Guåhan. This has plenty of resources for both reading and listening practice, and you can learn more about important sites on Guåhan.

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.

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.

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.

Siha – Soap Opera in Chamorro
Siha, which means “they” in Chamorro is a high tension, dramatic soap opera that follows the story of four young adults as they build themselves and their relationships with each other, told completely in Chamorro. There are four episodes, roughly 5 – 6 minutes in length. A great resource for practicing listening

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Chamoru transcripts on my downloads page. Additionally, I have these transcripts formatted for the Kindle, available from my dropbox.