Latvian Folk Songs about Father

Latvian song Free translationWord-for-word translation
Ko, tētiņ, tu darīji
Visu dienu siliņā?
- Bitītēm stropu daru
Līdz apakšai izrotātu.
What were you doing in the forest,
Father, all day long?
- Making a hive for the bees
Decorated from top to bottom.
what-acc.sg. father-dim.voc.sg. you-nom.2nd.p.sg. do-pst.2nd.p.sg.
all-acc.sg. day-acc.sg. evergreen-forest-dim.loc.sg.
bee-dim.dat.pl. hive-acc.sg. make/do-pres.1st.p.sg.
until bottom-dat.sg. decorate-indecl.ppl.
Nevienam tādas bites
Kā tam mūsu tētiņam;
Mūsu tēvam tādas bites
Kā pērnie sivēniņi.
No one has bees like our Dad
Like our very own father has;
Our Dad's bees are as big
As last year's pigs.
no-one-masc.dat.sg. such-fem.nom.pl. bee-nom.pl.
as/like that-masc.dat.sg. our-1st.p.gen.pl. father-dim.dat.sg.
our-1st.p.gen.pl. father-dat.sg. such-fem.nom.pl. bee-nom.pl
as/like last-year-masc.nom.pl. piglet-dim.nom.pl.


To see the explanation of the grammatical abbreviations used in the "word-for-word" translations, go to → Grammatical Abbreviations


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This page created and maintained by
A. Steinbergs

Last revised September 19, 2008