| Latvian song | Free translation | Word-for-word translation |
| Aiz ezera balti bērzi Sidrabiņa lapiņām. | Beyond the lake grow white birch trees With silvery leaves. | beyond lake-gen.sg. white-masc.nom.pl. birch-tree-nom.pl. silver-dim.gen.sg. leaf-dim.dat.pl. |
| Tur aizveda mūs' māsiņu Sidrabiņa kalējam. | There they brought our sister To wed a silver smith. | there away-led-pst.3rd.p. our-gen.pl. sister-dim.acc.sg. silver-dim.gen.sg. smith-dat.sg. |
| Viena pati man māsiņa To aizveda tautiņās. | I only had one sister; They sent her away to marry. | one-fem.nom.sg. self-fem.nom.sg. me-dat.sg. sister-dim.nom.sg. that-acc.sg. away-led-pst.3rd.p. (strange)-folk-dim.loc.pl. |
| Mana paša līgaviņa Negrib manīm mutes dot. | My own sweetheart Doesn't want to kiss me. | my-fem.nom.sg. own-gen.sg. bride-dim.fem.sg. not-want-3rd.p.pres. me-dat.sg. mouth-gen.sg. give-inf. |
| Iešu pāri ezerami; Ņemšu, kura mutes dod. | I'll go across the lake And marry the one who does want to kiss me. | go-fut.1st.p.sg. across lake-dat.sg.-i take-fut.1st.p.sg. who-fem.nom.sg. mouth-gen.sg. give-3rd.p.pres. |
| Refrain (after each verse): Vai, vai, vai, vai, vai, vai, vai, vai Repeat last line of each verse. | Refrain: Alas, alas, alas, etc. Repeat last line of each verse. |
To see the explanation of the grammatical abbreviations used in the "word-for-word" translations, go to → Grammatical Abbreviations
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Last revised September 17, 2008